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UTILITARIANISM 


BY 

JOHN   STUART    MILL 


NEW    EDITIOH 


BOSTON 

WILLARD    SMALL 

1887" 


bO^\, 


UTILITARIANISM. 


CHAPTER  I. 

GENERAL   REMARKS. 

There  are  few  circumstances,  among 
those  which  make  up  the  present  condi- 
tion of  human  knowledge,  more  unlike 
what  might  have  been  exjDected,  or  more 
significant  of  the  backward  state  in  which 
speculation  on  the  most  important  sub- 
jects still  lingers,  than  the  little  progress 
which  has  been  made  in  the  decision  of 
the  controversy  respecting  the  criterion 
of  right  and  wrong.  From  the  dawn  of 
philosophy,  the  question  concerning  the 
summum  honum,  or,  what  is  the  same 
thing,  concerning  the  foundation  of  moral- 
ity, has  been  accounted  the  main  problem 
in  speculative  thought,  has  occupied  the 
most  gifted  intellects,  and  divided  them 
into  sects  and  schools,  carrying  on  a  vig- 
orous warfare  against  one  another.     And 


2  UTILITABIANISM. 

after  more  than  two  thousand  years  the 
same  discussions  continue,  philosophers 
are  still  ranged  under  the  same  contend- 
ing banners,  and  neither  thinkers  nor 
mankind  at  large  seem  nearer  to  being 
unanimous  on  the  subject,  than  when  the 
youth  Socrates  listened  to  the  old  Protag- 
orasj^^nd  asserted  (if  Plato's  dialogue  be 
grounded  on  a  real  conversation)  the  the- 
ory of  utilitarianism  against  the  popular 
morality  of  the  so-called  sophist. 

It  is  true  that  similar  confusion  and 
uncertainty,  and  in  some  cases  similar 
discordance ,  exist  respecting  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  all  the  sciences,  not  excepting 
that  which  is  deemed  the  most  certain  of 
them,  mathematics ;  without  much  im- 
pairing, generally  indeed  without  impair- 
ing at  all,  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
conclusions  of  those  sciences.  An  appar- 
ent anomal}^  the  explanation  of  which  is 
that  the  detailed  doctrines  of  a  science  are 
not  usually  deduced  from,  nor  depend  for 
their  evidence  upon,  what  are  called  its 
first  principles.  Were  it  not  so,  there 
would  be  no  science  more  precarious, 
or   whose  conclusions  were  more  insuffi- 


OENEBAL  REMARKS.  3 

ciently  made  out,  than  algebra;  which 
derives  none  of  its  certaintj^  from  what 
are  commonly  taught  to  learners  as  its 
elements,  since  these,  as  laid  down  by 
some  of  its  most  eminent  teachers,  are  as 
full  of  fictions  as  English  law,  and  of  mys- 
teries as  theology.  The  truths  which  are 
ultimately  accepted  as  the  first  principles 
of  a  science,  are  really  the  last  results  of 
metaphysical  analysis,  practised  on  the 
elementary  notions  with  which  the  science 
is  conversant ;  and  their  relation  to  the 
sciePiCe  is  not  that  of  foundations  to  an 
edifice,  but  of  roots  to  a  tree,  which  may 
perform  their  office  equally  well  though 
they  be  never  dug  down  to  and  exposed 
to  light.  But  though  in  science  the  par- 
ticular truths  precede  the  general  theory, 
the  contrary  might  be  expected  to  be  the 
case  with  a  practical  art,  such  as  morals 
or  legislation.  All  action  is  for  the  sake 
of  some  end,  and  rules  of  action,  it  seems 
natural  to  suppose,  must  take  their  whole 
character  and  color  from  the  end  to  which 
they  are  subservient.  When  we  engage 
in  a  pursuit,  a  clear  and  precise  conception 
of  what  we  are  pursuing  would  seem  to  be 


4  UTILITARIANISM. 

the  first  thing  we  n^ed,  instead  of  the  last 
we  are  to  look  forward  to.  A  test  of 
right  and  wrong  must  be  the  means,  one 
would  think,  of  ascertaining  what  is  right 
or  wrong,  and  not  a  consequence  of  having 
already  ascertained  it. 

The  difficulty  is  not  avoided  by  having 
recourse  to  the  popular  theory  of  a  natural 
faculty,  a  sense  or  instinct,  informing  us 
of  right  and  wrong.  For — besides  tbat 
the  existence  of  such  a  moral  instinct  is 
itself  one  of  the  matters  in  dispute  —  those 
believers  in  it  who  have  any  pretensions 
to  philosophy,  have  been  obliged  to  aban- 
don the  idea  that  it  discerns  what  is  right 
or  wrong  in  the  particular  case  in  hand,  as 
our  other  senses  discern  the  sight  or  sound 
actually  present.  Our  moral  faculty,  ac- 
cording to  all  those  of  its  interpreters  who 
are  entitled  to  the  name  of  thinkers,  sup- 
plies us  only  with  the  general  principles 
of  moral  judgments  ;  it  is  a  branch  of  our 
reason,  not  of  our  sensitive  faculty ;  and 
must  be  looked  to  for  the  abstract  doc- 
trines of  morality,  not  for  perception  of  it 
in  the  concrete.  The  intuitive,  no  less 
than  what  may  be  termed  the  inductive, 


GENEBAL  REMARKS.  5 

school  of  ethics  insists  on  the  necessity  of 
general  laws.  They  both  agree  that  the 
morality  of  an  individual  action  is  not  a 
question  of  direct  perception,  but  of  the 
application  of  a  law  to  an  individual  case. 
They  recognize  also,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
same  moral  laws ;  but  differ  as  to  their 
evidence,  and  the  source  from  which  they 
derive  their  authority.  According  to  the 
one  opinion,  the  principles  of  morals  are 
evident  a  priori,  requiring  nothing  to  com- 
mand assent,  except  that  the  meaning  of 
the  terms  be  understood.  Accordinii;  to~ 
the  other  doctrine,  right  and  wrong,  as 
well  as  truth  and  falsehood,  are  questions 
of  observation  and  experience.  But  both 
hold  equa'Uy  that  morality  must  be  de- 
duced from  principles ;  and  the  intuitive 
school  affirm  as  strongly  as  the  inductive, 
that  there  is  a  science  of  morals.  Yet 
they  seldom  attempt  to  make  out  a  list  of 
the  a  jpriori  principles  which  are  to  serve 
as  the  premises  of  the  science  ;  still  more 
rarely  do  they  make  any  effort  to  reduce 
these  various  principles  to  one  first  prin- 
ciple, or  common  ground  of  obligation. 
They  either  assume  the  ordinary  precepts 


6  UTILITABIANI8M. 

of  morals  as  of  a  priori  authority,  or  they 
lay  down  as  the  common  groundwork  of 
those  maxims  some  generality  much  less 
obviously  authoritative  than  the  maxims 
themselves,  and  which  has  never  succeeded 
in  gaining  popular  acceptance.  Yet  to 
support  their  pretensions  there  ought 
either  to  be  some  fundamental  principle 
or  law,  at  the  root  of  all  morality,  or  if 
there  be  several,  there  should  be  a  deter- 
minate order  of  precedence  among  them ; 
and  the  one  principle,  or  the  rule  for  de- 
ciding between  the  various  principles  when 
they  conflict,  ought  to  be  self-evident. 

To  inquire  how  far  the  bad  effects  of 
this  deficiency  have  been  mitigated  in 
practice,  or  to  what  extent  the  moral  be- 
liefs of  mankind  have  been  vitiated  or 
made  uncertain  by  the  absence  of  any  dis- 
tinct recognition  of  an  ultimate  standard, 
would  imply  a  complete  survey  and  criti- 
cism of  past  and  present  ethical  doctrine. 
It  would,  however,  be  easy  to  show  that 
whatever  steadiness  or  consistency  these 
moral  beliefs  have  attained,  has  been 
mainly  due  to  the  tacit  influence  of  a 
standard  not   recognized.     Although  the 


GENEBAL  BEMABES.  7 

non-existence  of  an  acknowledged  first 
principle  has  made  ethics  not  so  much  a 
guide  as  a  consecration  of  men's  actual 
sentiments,  still,  as  men's  sentiments,  both 
of  favor  and  of  aversion,  are  greatly  influ- 
enced by  what  they  suppose  to  be  the 
effects  of  things  upon  their  happiness,  the 
principle  of  utility,  or  as  Bentham  latterly 
called  it,  the  greatest  happiness  principle, 
has  had  a  large  share  in  forming  the  moral 
doctrines  even  of  those  who  most  scorn- 
fully reject  its  authority.  Nor  is  there 
any  school  of  thought  which  refuses  to 
admit  that  the  influence  of  actions  on  hap- 
piness is  a  most  material  and  even  pre- 
dominant consideration  in  many  of  the 
details  of  morals,  however  unwilling  to 
acknowledge  it  as  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  morality,  and  the  source  of  moral 
obligation.  I  might  go  much  further,  and  j  ^-^ ., 
say  that  to  all  those  a  priori  moralists  I  J^>" '' 
who  deem  it  necessary  to  argue  at  all,K  >^- 
utilitarian  arguments  are  indispensable.!  "^^  ' 
It  is  not  my  present  purpose  to  criticise 
these  thinkers  ;  but  I  cannot  help  refer- 
ring, for  illustration,  to  a  systematic  trea- 
tise  by  one   of  the   most   illustrious   of 


8  UTILITABIANISM. 

them,  the  Metaphysics  of  Ethics,  by  Kant. 
This  remarkable  man,  whose  system  of 
thought  will  long  remain  one  of  the  land- 
marks in  the  history  of  philosophical  spec- 
ulation, does,  in  the  treatise  in  question, 
lay  down  an  universal  first  principle  as 
the  origin  and  ground  of  moral  obliga- 
tion ;  it  is  this  :  "  So  act,  that  the  rule 
on  which  thou  actest  would  admit  of  being: 
adopted  as  a  law  by  all  rational  beings." 
But  when  he  begins  to  deduce  from  this 
precept  any  of  the  actual  duties  of  moral- 
ity, he  fails,  almost  grotesquely,  to  show 
that  there  would  be  any  contradiction,  any 
logical  (not  to  say  physical)  impossibility, 
in  the  adoption  by  all  rational  beings  of 
the  most  outrageously  immoral  rules  of 
conduct.  All  he  shows  is  that  the  conse- 
quences  of  their  universal  adoption  would 
be  such  as  no  one  would  choose  to  incur. 
On  the  present  occasion,  I  shall,  with- 
out further  discussion  of  the  other  theo- 
ries, attempt  to  contribute  something  to- 
wards the  understanding  and  appreciation 
of  the  Utilitarian  or  Happiness  theory, 
and  towards  such  proof  as  it  is  suscepti- 
ble of.     It  is  evident  that  this  cannot  be 


OENEBAL  BEMABKS.  9 

proof  in  the  ordinary  and  popular  mean- 
ing of  the  term.  Questions  of  ultimate  |  ' 
ends  are  not  amenable  to  direct  proof.;  ,, 
Whatever  can  be  proved  to  be  good,  must 
be  so  by  being  shown  to  be  a  means  to 
something  admitted  to  be  good  without 
proof.  The  medical  art  is  proved  to  be 
good,  by  its  conducing  to  health ;  but 
how  is  it  possible  to  prove  that  health  is 
good  ?  The  art  of  music  is  good,  for  the 
reason,  among  others,  that  it  produces 
pleasure ;  but  what  proof  is  it  possible  to 
give  that  pleasure  is  good?  If,  then,  it 
is  asserted  that  there  is  a  comprehensive 
formula,  including  all  things  which  are 
in  themselves  good,  and  that  whatever 
else  is  good,  is  not  so  as  an  end,  but  as 
a  mean,  the  formula  may  be  accepted  or 
rejected,  but  is  not  a  subject  of  what  is 
commonly  understood  by  proof.  We  are 
not,  however,  to  infer  that  its  acceptance 
or  rejection  must  depend  on  blind  im- 
pulse, or  arbitrary  choice.  There  is  a 
larger  meaning  of  the  word  proof,  in 
which  this  question  is  as  amenable  to  it 
as  any  other  of  the  disputed  questions  of 
philosophy.     The  subject  is   within   the 


10  UTILITABIANISM. 

cognizance  of  the  rational  faculty;  and 
neither  does  that  faculty  deal  with  it  solely 
in  the  way  of  intuition.  Considerations 
may  be  presented  capable  of  determining 
the  intellect  either  to  give  or  withhold 
its  assent  to  the  doctrine ;  and  this  is 
equivalent  to  proof. 

We  shall  examine  presently  of  what 
nature  are  these  considerations ;  in  what 
manner  they  apply  to  the  case,  and  what 
rational  grounds,  therefore,  can  be  given 
for  accepting  or  rejecting  the  utilitarian 
formula.  But  it  is  a  preliminary  condi- 
tion of  rational  acceptance  or  rejection, 
that  the  formula  should  be  correctly  un- 
derstood. I  believe  that  the  very  im- 
perfect notion  ordinarily  formed  of  its 
meaning,  is  the  chief  obstacle  which  im- 
pedes its  reception ;  and  that  could  it  be 
cleared,  even  from  only  the  grosser  mis- 
conceptions, the  question  would  be  greatly 
simplified,  and  a  large  proportion  of  its 
difficulties  removed.  Before,  therefore, 
I  attempt  to  enter  into  the  philosophical 
grounds  which  can  be  given  for  assenting 
to  the  utilitarian  standard,  I  shall  offer 
some  illustrations  of  the  doctrine  itself; 


UENEBAL  BEMABKS.  11 

with  the  view  of  showing  more  clearly 
what  it  is,  distinguishing  it  from  what  it 
is  not,  and  disposing  of  such  of  the  prac- 
tical objections  to  it  as  either  originate  in, 
or  are  closely  connected  with,  mistaken 
interpretations  of  its  meaning.  Having 
thus  prepared  the  ground,  I  shall  after- 
wards endeavor  to  throw  such  light  as  I 
can  upon  the  question,  considered  as  one 
of  philosophical  theory. 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT   UTILITAKIAKISM  IS. 

A  PASSING  remark  is  all  that  needs  be 
given  to  the  ignorant  blunder  of  supposing 
that  those  who  stand  up  for  utility  as  the 
test  of  right  and  wrong,  use  the  term  in 
that  restricted  and  merely  colloquial  sense 
in  which  utility  is  opposed  to  pleasure. 
An  apology  is  due  to  the  philosophical 
opponents  of  utilitarianism,  for  even  the 
momentary  appearance  of  confounding 
them  with  any  one  capable  of  so  absurd  a 
misconception  ;  which  is  the  more  extraor- 
dinary, inasmuch  as  the  contrary  accusa- 
tion, of  referring  everything  to  pleasure, 
and  that  too  in  its  grossest  form,  is  another 
of  the  common  charges  against  utilitarian- 
ism ;  and,  as  has  been  pointedly  remarked 
by  an  able  writer,  the  same  sort  of  per. 
sons,  and  often  the  very  same  persons, 
denounce    the   theory   "as   impracticably 


ITS  MEANING.  13 

dry  when  the  word  utility  precedes  the 
word  pleasure,  and  as  too  practicably 
voluptuous  when  the  word  pleasure  pre- 
cedes the  word  utility."  Those  who  know 
anything  about  the  matter  are  aware  that 
every  writer,  from  Epicurus  to  Bentham, 
who  maintained  the  theory  of  utility, 
meant  by  it,  not  something  to  be  contra- 
distinguished from  pleasure,  but  pleasure 
itself,  together  with  exemption  from  pain  ; 
and  instead  of  opposing  the  useful  to  the 
agreeable  or  the  ornamental,  have  alvv^ays 
declared  that  the  useful  nraans  these, 
among  other  things.  Yet  the  common 
herd,  including  the  herd  of  writers,  not 
only  in  newspapers  and  periodicals,  but 
in  books  of  weight  and  pretension,  are 
perpetually  falling  into  this  shallow  mis- 
take. Having  caught  up  the  word  utilita- 
rian, while  knowing  nothing  whatever 
about  it  but  its  sound,  they  habitually 
express  by  it  the  rejection,  or  the  neglect, 
of  pleasure  in  some  of  its  forms ;  of 
beauty,  of  ornament,  or  of  amusement. 
'Nor  is  the  term  thus  ignorantly  misap- 
plied solely  in  disparagement,  but  occa- 
sionally  in    compliment ;    as    though    it 


14  UTILITABIANISM. 

implied  superiority  to  frivolity  and  the 
mere  pleasures  of  the  moment.  And 
this  perverted  use  is  the  only  one  in 
which  the  word  is  popularly  known,  and 
the  one  from  which  the  new  generation 
are  acquiring  their  sole  notion  of  its  mean- 
ing. Those  who  introduced  the  word,  but 
who  had  for  many  years  discontinued  it 
as  a  distinctive  appellation,  may  well  feel 
themselves  called  upon  to  resume  it,  if  by 
doing  so  they  can  hope  to  contribute  any- 
thing towards  rescuing  it  from  this  utter 
degradation.* 

The  creed  which  accepts  as  the  founda- 
tion of  morals,  Utility,   or  the  Greatest 

*  The  author  of  this  essay  has  reason  for  believ- 
ing himself  to  be  the  first  person  who  brought  the 
word  utilitarian  into  use.  He  did  not  invent  it,  but 
adapted  it  from  a  passing  expression  in  Mr.  Gait's 
Annals  of  the  Parish.  After  using  it  as  a  designa- 
tion for  several  years,  he  and  others  abandoned  it 
from  a  growing  dislike  to  anything  resembling  a 
badge  or  watchword  of  sectarian  distinction.  But 
as  a  name  for  one  single  opinion,  not  a  set  of  opin- 
ions, —  to  denote  the  recognition  of  utility  as  a 
standard,  not  any  particular  way  of  applying  it,  — 
the  term  supplies  a  want  in  the  language,  and  ofi'ers, 
in  many  cases,  a  convenient  mode  of  avoiding  tire- 
some circumlocution. 


ITS  MEANING.  15 

Happiness  Principle,  holds  that  actions  j 
are  right  in  proportion  as  they  tend  to 
promote  happiness,  wrong  as  they  tend  to 
produce  the  reverse  of  happiness.  By 
happiness  is  intended  pleasure,  and  the 
absence  of  pam  ;  by  unhappiness,  pain, 
and  the  privation  of  pleasure.  To  give  a 
clear  view  of  the  moral  standard  set  up 
by  the  theory,  much  more  requires  to  be 
said  \  in  particular,  what  things  it  includes 
in  the  ideas  of  pain  and  pleasure ;  and  to 
what  extent  this  is  left  an  open  question. 
But  these  supplementary  explanations  do 
not  affect  the  theory  of  life  on  which  this 
theory  of  morality  is  grounded,  — namely, 
that  pleasure,  and  freedom  from  pain,  are 
the  only  things  desirable  as  ends ;  and 
that  all  desirable  things  (which  are  as 
numerous  in  the  utilitarian  as  in  any  other 
scheme)  are  desirable  either  for  the  pleas- 
ure inherent  in  themselves,  or  as  means 
to  the  promotion  of  pleasure  and  the  pre- 
vention of  pain. 

Now,  such  a  theory  of  life  excites  in 
many  minds,  and  among  them  in  some  of 
the  most  estimable  in  feeling  and  purpose, 
inveterate  dislike.     To  suppose   that  life 


16  UTILITABIAmSM. 


has  (as  they  express  it)  no  higher  end 
than  pleasure,  —  no  better  and  nobler  ob- 
ject of  desire  and  pursuit,  —  they  desig-  / 
nate  as  utterly  mean  and  grovelling;  as  a 
doctrine  worthy  only  of  swine,  to  whom 
the  followers  of  Epicurus  were,  at  a  very 
early  period,  contemptuously  likened  ;  and 
modern  holders  of  the  doctrine  are  occa- 
sionally made  the  subject  of  equally  polite 
comparisons  by  its  German,  French,  and 
English  assailants. 

When  thus  attacked,  the  Epicureans 
have  always  answered,  that  it  is  not  they, 
but  their  accusers,  who  represent  human 
nature  in  a  degrading  light ;  since  the  ac- 
cusation supposes  human  beings  to  be  ca- 
pable of  no  pleasures  except  those  of  which  ■ 
swine  are  capable.  If  this  supposition  ' 
were  true,  the  charge  could  not  be  gain- 
said, but  would  then  be  no  longer  an  im- 
putation ;  for  if  the  sources  of  pleasure 
were  precisely  the  same  to  human  beings 
and  to  swine,  the  rule  of  life  which  is 
good  enough  for  the  one  would  be  good 
enough  for  the  other.  The  comparison 
of  the  Epicurean  life  to  that  of  beasts 
is  felt  as   degrading,  precisely  because  a 


ITS  MEANING.  17 

beast's  pleasures  do  not  satisfy  a  human 
being's  conceptions  of  happiness.  Human 
beings  have  faculties  more  elevated  than 
the  animal  appetites,  and  when  once  made 
conscious  of  them,  do  not  regard  anything 
as  happiness  which  does  not  include  their 
gratification.  I  do  not,  indeed,  consider 
the  Epicureans  to  have  been  by  any  means 
faultless  in  drawing  out  their  scheme  of 
consequences  from  the  utilitarian  princi- 
ple. To  do  this  in  any  sufficient  manner, 
many  Stoic,  as  well  as  Christian  elements 
require  to  be  included.  But  there  is  no 
known  Epicurean  theory  of  life  which 
does  not  assign  to  the  pleasures  of  the 
intellect,  of  the  feelings  and  imagination, 
and  of  the  moral  sentiments,  a  much 
higher  value  as  pleasures  than  to  those  of 
mere  sensation.  It  must  be  admitted, 
however,  that  utilitarian  writers  in  general 
have  placed  the  superiority  of  mental  over 
bodily  pleasures  chiefly  in  the  greater 
permanency,  safety,  uncostliness,  etc.,  of 
the  former,  — that  is,  in  their  circumstan- 
tial advantages  rather  than  in  their  intrinsic 
nature.  And  on  all  these  points  utilita- 
rians have  fully  proved  their  case ;   but 

2 


18  UTILITABIANISM, 

they  might  have  taken  the  other,  and,  as 
it  may  be  called,  higher  gromid,  with 
entire  consistency.  It  is  quite  compati- 
ble with  the  principle  of  utility  to  recog- 
nize the  fact,  that  some  Mnds  of  pleasure 
are  more  desirable  and  more  valuable  than 
others.  It  Avould  be  absurd  that  while,  in 
estimating  all  other  things,  quality  is  con- 
sidered as  well  as  quantity,  the  estimation 
of  pleasure  should  be  supposed  to  depend 
on  quantity  alone. 

If  I  am  asked  what  I  mean  by  differ- 
ence of  quality  in  pleasures,  or  what  makes 
one  pleasure  more  valuable  than  another, 
merely  as  a  pleasure,  except  its  being 
greater  in  amount,  there  is  but  one  pos- 
sible answer.  Of  two  pleasures,  if  there 
be  one  to  which  all  or  almost  all  who  have 
experience  of  both  give  a  decided  prefer- 
ence, irrespective  of  any  feeling  of  moral 
obligation  to  prefer  it,  that  is  the  more 
desirable  pleasure.  If  one  of  the  two  is, 
by  those  who  are  competently  acquainted 
with  both,  placed  so  far  above  tho  other 
that  they  prefer  it,  even  though  knowing 
it  to  be  attended  with  a  greater  amount  of 
discontent,   and  would  not   resign   it  for 


ITS  MEANING.  19 

any  quantity  of  the  other  pleasure  which 
their  nature  is  capable  of,  we  are  justified 
in  ascribing  to  the  preferred  enjoyment  a 
superiority  in  quality,  so  far  outweighing 
quantity  as  to  render  it,  in  comparison,  of 
small  account. 

Now  it  is  an  unquestionable  fact  that 
those  who  are  equally  acquainted  with, 
and  equally  capable  of  appreciating  and  en- 
joying both,  do  give  a  most  marked  pref- 
erence to  the  manner  of  existence  which 
employs  their  higher  faculties.  Few  hu- 
man creatures  would  consent  to  be  changed 
into  any  of  the  lower  animals,  for  a  prom- 
ise of  the  fullest  allowance  of  a  beast's 
pleasures ;  no  intelligent  human  being 
would  consent  to  be  a  fool,  no  instructed 
person  would  be  an  ignoramus,  no  person 
of  feeling  and  conscience  would  be  selfish 
and  base,  even  though  they  should  be  per- 
suaded that  the  fool,  the  dunce,  or  the 
rascal  is  better  satisfied  with  his  lot  than 
they  are  with  theirs.  They  would  not 
resign  what  they  possess  more  than  he, 
for  the  most  complete  satisfaction  of  all 
the  desires  which  they  have  in  common 
with  him.     If  they  ever  fancy  they  would, 


^0  UTILITABIANISM. 

it  is  only  in  cases  of  unhappiness  so  ex- 
treme, that  to  escape  from  it  they  would 
exchange  their  lot  for  almost  any  other, 
however  undesirable  in  their  own  eyes. 
A  being  of  higher  faculties  requires  more 
to  make  him  happy,  is  capable  probably 
of  more  acute  suffering,  and  is  certainly 
accessible  to  it  at  more  points,  than  one 
of  an  inferior  type ;  but  in  spite  of  these 
liabilities,  he  can  never  really  wish  to  sink 
into  what  he  feels  to  be  a  lower  grade  of 
existence.  We  may  give  what  explana- 
tion we  please  of  this  unwillingness ;  we 
may  attribute  it  to  pride,  a  name  which  is 
given  indiscriminately  to  some  of  the  most 
and  to  some  of  the  least  estimable  feeliuo^s 
of  which  mankind  are  capable  ;  we  may 
refer  it  to  the  love  of  liberty  and  personal 
independence,  an  appeal  to  which  was  with 
the  Stoics  one  of  the  most  effective  means 
for  the  inculcation  of  it ;  to  the  love  of 
power,  or  to  the  love  of  excitement,  both 
of  which  do  really  enter  into  and  contribute 
to  it ;  but  its  most  appropriate  appellation 
is  a  sense  of  dignity,  which  all  human 
beings  possess  in  one  form  or  other,  and 
in  some,  though  by  no  means  in  exact, 


ITS  MEAmNG.  21 

proportion  to  their  higher  faculties,  and 
which  is  so  essential  a  part  of  the  happi- 
ness of  those  in  whom  it  is  strong,  that 
nothing  which  conflicts  with  it  could  be, 
otherwise  than  momentarily,  an  object  of 
desire  to  them.  Whoever  supposes  that 
this  preference  takes  place  at  a  sacrifice  of 
happiness  —  that  the  superior  being,  in 
anything  like  equal  circumstances,  is  not 
happier  than  the  inferior  —  confounds  the 
two  very  different  ideas,  of  happiness, 
and  content.  It  is  indisputable  that  the 
being  whose  capacities  of  enjoyment  are 
low,  has  the  greatest  chance  of  having 
them  fully  satisfied  ;  and  a  highly  endowed 
being  will  always  feel  that  any  happiness 
which  he  can  look  for,  as  the  world  is 
constituted,  is  imperfect.  But  he  can 
learn  to  bear  its  imperfections,  if  they  are 
at  all  bearable  ;  and  they  will  not  make 
him  envy  the  being  who  is  indeed  uncon- 
scious of  the  imperfections,  but  only  be- 
cause he  feels  not  at  all  the  good  which 
those  imperfections  qualify.  It  is  better 
to  be  a  human  being  dissatisfied  than  a 
pig  satisfied ;  better  to  be  Socrates  dis- 
satisfied than  a  fool  satisfied.     And  if  the 


22  UTILITABIANISM. 

fool,  or  the  pig,  is  of  a  different  opinion, 
it  is  because  they  only  know  their  own 
side  of  the  question.  The  other  party  to 
the  comparison  knows  both  sides. 

It  may  be  objected,  that  many  who  are 
capable  of  the  higher  pleasures,  occasion- 
ally, under  the  influence  of  temptation, 
postpone  them  to  the  lower.  But  this  is 
quite  compatible  with  a  full  appreciation 
of  the  intrinsic  superiority  of  the  higher. 
Men  often,  from  infirmity  of  character, 
make  their  election  for  the  nearer  good, 
though  they  know  it  to  be  the  less  valua- 
ble ;  and  this  no  less  when  the  choice  is 
between  two  bodily  pleasures,  than  when 
it  is  between  bodily  and  mental.  They 
pursue  sensual  indulgences  to  the  injury 
of  health,  though  perfectly  aware  that 
health  is  the  greater  good.  It  may  be 
further  objected,  that  many  who  begin 
with  youthful  enthusiasm  for  everything 
noble,  as  they  advance  in  years  sink  into 
indolence  and  selfishness.  But  I  do  not 
believe  that  those  who  undergo  this  very 
common  change,  voluntarily  choose  the 
lower  description  of  pleasures  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  higher.     I  believe  that  before 


ITS  MEANIKG.  23 

they  devote  themselves  exckisively  to  the 
one,  they  have  ah-eady  become  iocapable 
of  the  other.  Capacity  for  the  nobler 
feelings  is  in  most  natures  a  very  tender 
plant,  easily  killed,  not  only  by  hostile  in- 
flnences,  but  by  mere  want  of  sustenance  ; 
and  in  the  majority  of  young  persons  it 
speedily  dies  away  if  the  occupations  to 
which  their  position  in  life  has  devoted 
them,  and  the  society  into  which  it  has 
thrown  them,  are  not  favorable  to  keeping 
that  higher  capacity  in  exercise.  Men 
lose  their  high  aspirations  as  they  lose 
their  intellectual  tastes,  because  they  have 
not  time  or  opportunity  for  indulging 
them  ;  and  they  addict  themselves  to  infe- 
rior pleasures,  not  because  they  deliber- 
ately prefer  them,  but  because  they  are 
either  the  only  ones  to  which  they  have 
access,  or  the  only  ones  which  they  are 
any  longer  capable  of  enjoying.  It  may 
be  questioned  whether  any  one  who  has  re-  - 
mained  equally  susceptible  to  both  classes 
of  pleasures,  ever  knowingly  and  calmly 
preferred  the  lower;  though  manj^  in  alll 
ages,  have  broken  down  in  an  ineffectual  \ 
attempt  to  combine  both. 


24  UTILITABIANI8M, 

From  this  verdict  of  the  only  compe- 
tent judges,  I  apprehend  there  can  be  no 
appeal.  On  a  question  which  is  the  best 
worth  having  of  two  pleasures,  or  which  of 
two  modes  of  existence  is  the  most  grate- 
ful to  the  feelings,  apart  from  its  moral 
attributes  and  from  its  consequences,  the 
judgment  of  those  who  are  qualified  by 
knowledge  of  both,  or,  if  they  difier,  that 
of  the  majority  among  them,  must  be  ad- 
mitted as  final.  And  there  needs  be  the 
less  hesitation  to  accept  this  judgment 
respecting  the  quality  of  pleasures,  since 
there  is  no  other  tribunal  to  be  referred 
to  even  on  the  question  of  quantity.  What 
means  are  there  of  determining  which  is 
the  acutest  of  two  pains,  or  the  intensest 
of  two  pleasurable  sensations,  except  the 
general  suffrage  of  those  who  are  familiar 
with  both?  Neither  pains  nor  pleasures 
are  homogeneous,  and  pain  is  always  het- 
erogeneous with  pleasure.  What  is  there 
to  decide  whether  a  particular  pleasure 
is  worth  purchasing  at  the  cost  of  a  par 
ticular  pain,  except  the  feelings  and  judg- 
ment of  the  experienced?  When,  there- 
fore, those  feelings  and  judgment  declare 


ITS  MEANING.  25 

the  pleasures  derived  from  the  higher 
faculties  to  be  preferable  in  hind,  apart 
from  the  question  of  intensity,  to  those 
of  which  the  animal  nature,  disjoined 
from  the  higher  faculties,  is  susceptible, 
they  are  entitled  on  this  subject  to  the 
same  regard. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  point,  as  being  a 
necessary  part  of  a  perfectly  just  concep- 
tion of  Utility  or  Happiness,  considered 
as  the  directive  rule  of  human  conduct. 
But  it  is  by  no  means  an  indispensable 
condition  to  the  acceptance  of  the  utilita- 
rian standard ;  for  that  standard  is  not 
the  agent's  own  greatest  happiness,  but 
the  greatest  amount  of  happiness  alto- 
gether ;  and  if  it  may  possibly  be  doubted 
whether  a  noble  character  is  always  the 
happier  for  its  nobleness,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  it  makes  other  people  happier, 
and  that  the  world  in  general  is  immensely 
a  gainer  by  it.  Utilitarianism,  therefore, 
could  only  attain  its  end  by  the  general 
cultivation  of  nobleness  of  character,  even 
if  each  individual  were  only  benefited  hy 
the  nobleness  of  others,  and  his  own,  so 
far  as  happiness  is  concerned,  were  a  sheer 


26  UTILITABIANISM, 

deduction  from  the  benefit.  But  the  bare 
enunciation  of  sach  an  absurdit}^  as  this 
last,  renders  refutation  superfluous. 

According  to  the  Greatest  Happiness 
Principle,  as  above  explained,  the  ulti- 
mate end,  with  reference  to  and  for  the 
sake  of  which  all  other  things  are  desira- 
ble (whether  we  are  considering  our  own 
good  or  that  of  other  people),  is  an  exist- 
ence exempt  as  far  as  possible  from  pain, 
and  as  rich  as  possible  in  enjoj^ments, 
both  in  point  of  quantity  and  quahty  ; 
the  test  of  quality,  and  the  rule  for  meas- 
uring it  against  quantity,  being  the  pref- 
erence felt  by  those  who,  in  their  oppor- 
tunities of  experience,  to  which  must  be 
added  their  habits  of  self-consciousness 
and  self-observation,  are  best  furnished 
with  the  means  of  comparison.  This  be- 
ing, according  to  the  utilitarian  opinion, 
the  end  of  human  action,  is  necessarily 
also  the  standard  of  morality  ;  which  may 
accordingly  be  defined,  the  rules  and  pre- 
cepts for  human  conduct,  by  the  observ- 
ance of  which  an  existence  such  as  has 
been  described  might  be,  to  the  greatest 
extent  possible,  secured  to  all  mankind ; 


ITS  MEANING.  27 

and  not  to  them  only,  but,  so  far  as  the 
nature  of  things  admits,  to  the  whole  sen- 
tient creation. 

Against  this  doctrine,  however,  rises 
another  class  of  objectors,  who  say  that 
happiness,  in  any  form,  cannot  be  the 
rational  purpose  of  human  life  and  action  ; 
because,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  unattain- 
able ;  and  they  contemptuously  ask.  What 
right  hast  thou  to  be  happy?  a  question 
which  Mr.  Carlyle  clinches  by  the  addi- 
tion, What  right,  a  short  time  ago,  hadst 
thou  even  to  be?  N^ext,  they  say  that 
men  can  do  loitJtout  happiness ;  that  all 
noble  human  beings  have  felt  this,  and 
could  not  have  become  noble  but  by  learn- 
ing the  lesson  of  Entsagen,  or  renuncia- 
tion ;  which  lesson,  thoroughly  learned  and 
submitted  to,  they  affirm  to  be  the  begin- 
ning and  necessary  condition  of  all  virtue. 

The  first  of  these  objections  would  go 
to  the  root  of  the  matter,  were  it  well 
founded  ;  for  if  no  happiness  is  to  be  had 
at  all  by  human  beings,  the  attainment  of 
it  cannot  be  the  end  of  morality,  or  of  any 
rational  conduct.  Though,  even  in  that 
case,  something  might  still  be  said  for  the 


28  UTILITABIANISM. 

utilitarian  theory ;  since  utility  includes 
not  solely  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  but 
the  prevention  or  mitigation  of  unhappi- 
ness  ;  and  if  the  former  aim  be  chimerical, 
there  will  be  all  the  greater  scope  and 
more  imperative  need  for  the  latter,  so 
long,  at  least,  as  mankind  think  fit  to  live, 
and  do  not  take  refuge  in  the  simultaneous 
act  of  suicide  recommended  under  certain 
conditions  by  Novalis.  When,  however, 
it  is  thus  positively  asserted  to  be  impos- 
sible that  human  life  should  be  happy, 
the  assertion,  if  not  something  like  a  ver- 
bal quibble,  is  at  least  an  exaggeration. 
If  b}"  happiness  be  meant  a  continuity  of 
highl}^  pleasurable  excitement,  it  is  evi- 
dent enough  that  this  is  impossible.  A 
state  of  exalted  pleasure  lasts  only  mo- 
ments, or  in  some  cases,  and  with  some 
intermissions,  hours  or  days,  and  is  the 
occasional  brilliant  flash  of  enjoyment,  not 
its  permanent  and  steady  flame.  Of  this 
the  philosophers  who  have  taught  that 
happiness  is  the  end  of  life  were  as  fully 
aware  as  those  who  taunt  them.  The  hap- 
piness which  they  meant  was  not  a  life 
of  rapture ;    but  moments  of  such,  in  an 


ITS  MEANING.  29 

existence  made  up  of  few  and  transitory 
pains^many  and  various  pleasures,  with  a 
decided  predominance  of  the  active  over 
the  passive,  and  having  as  the  foundation 
of  the  whole,  not  to  expect  more  from 
life  than  it  is  capable  of  bestowing^  A 
life  thus  composed,  to  those  who  have 
been  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  it,  has 
always  appeared  worthy  of  the  name  of 
happiness.  And  such  an  existence  is  even 
now  the  lot  of  many,  during  some  consid- 
erable portion  of  their  lives.  The  present 
wretched  education,  and  wretched  social 
arrangements,  are  the  only  real  hindrance 
to  its  being  attainable  by  almost  all. 

The  objectors  perhaps  may  doubt  whether 
human  beings,  if  taught  to  consider  happi- 
ness as  the  end  of  life,  would  be  satisfied 
with  such  a  moderate  share  of  it.  But 
great  numbers  of  mankind  have  been  sat- 
isfied with  much  less.  (The  main  constit- 
uents of  a  satisfied  life  appear  to  be  two, 
either  of  which  by  itself  is  often  found 
sufficient  for  the  purpose :  tranquillity 
and  excitement.  With  much  tranquillity, 
many  find  that  they  can  be  content  with 
very  little  pleasure ;    with   much   excite- 


30  UTILITABIANISM. 

ment,  many  can  reconcile  themselves  to 
a  considerable  quantity  of  painj  There 
is  assuredly  no  inherent  impossibility  in 
enabling  even  the  mass  of  mankind  to 
unite  both  ;  since  the  two  are  so  far  from 
being  incompatible  that  they  are  in  natural 
alliance,  the  prolongation  of  either  being 
a  preparation  for,  and  exciting  a  wish  for, 
the  other.  It  is  only  those  in  whom  in- 
dolence amounts  to  a  vice,  that  do  not 
desire  excitement  after  an  interval  of 
repose  ;  it  is  only  those  in  whom  the  need 
of  excitement  is  a  disease,  that  feel  the 
tranquillity  which  follows  excitement  dull 
and  insipid,  instead  of  pleasurable  in  di- 
rect proportion  to  the  excitement  which 
preceded  it.  When  people  who  are  tol- 
erably fortunate  in  their  outward  lot  do  not 
find  in  life  sufficient  enjoyment  to  make  it 
valuable  to  them,  the  cause  generally  is, 
caring  for  nobody  but  themselves.  To 
those  who  have  neither  public  nor  private 
afiections,  the  excitements  of  life  are  much 
curtailed,  and  in  any  case  dwindle  in  value 
as  the  time  approaches  when  all  selfish 
interests  must  be  terminated  by  death ; 
rwhile  those  who  leave  after  them  objects 


ITS  MEANING.  31 

of  personal  affection,  and  especially  those 
who  have  also  cultivated  a  fellow-feeling 
with  the  collective  interests  of  mankind, 
retain  as  lively  an  interest  in  life  on  the 
eve  of  death  as  in  the  vigor  of  youth  and 
healthj^ext  to  selfishness,  the  principal 
cause  which  makes  life  unsatisfactory  is 
want  of  mental  cultivation])  A  cultivated 
mind  —  I  do  not  mean  that  of  a  philoso- 
pher, but  any  mind  to  which  the  foun- 
tains of  knowledge  have  been  opened,  and 
which  has  been  taught,  in  any  tolerable 
degree,  to  exercise  its  faculties  —  finds 
sources  of  inexhaustible  interest  in  all  that 
surrounds  itj  in  the  ohjeo-ts  of  nntnrp.lTip. 
achievements  of  art,  the  imaginations  of 
poetry,  the  incidents  of  history,  the  ways 
of  mankind  past  and  present,  and  their 
prospects  in  the  future.  It  is  possible, 
indeed,  to  become  indifferent  to  all  this, 
and  that  too  without  having  exhausted  a 
thousandth  part  of  it ;  but  only  when  one 
has  had  from  the  beginning  no  moral  or 
human  interest  in  these  things,  and  has 
sought  in  them  only  the  gratification  of 
curiosity. 

Xow  there    is  absolutely  no  reason   in 


32  UTILITABIANISM. 

the  nature  of  things  why  an  amount  of 
mental  culture  sufficient  to  give  an  intelli- 
gent interest  in  these  objects  of  contem- 
plation should  not  be  the  inheritance  of 
every  one  born  in  a  civilized  country. 
As  little  is  there  an  inherent  necessity 
that  any  human  being  should  be  a  selfish 
egotist,  devoid  of  every  feeling  or  care 
but  those  which  centre  in  his  own  miser- 
able individuality.  Something  far  supe- 
rior to  this  is  sufficiently  common,  even 
now,  to  give  ample  earnest  of  what  the 
human  species  may  b3  made.  Genuine 
private  affections  and  a  sincere  interest 
in  the  public  good  are  possible,  though  in 
unequal  degrees,  to  every  rightly  brought 
up  human  being,  (jn  a  world  in  which 
there  is  so  much  to  interest,  so  much  to 
enjoy,  and  so  much  also  to  correct  and 
improve,  every  one  who  has  this  moderate 
amount  of  moral  and  intellectual  requisites 
is  capable  of  an  existence  wdiich  may  be 
called  enviabj^  and  unless  such  a  person, 
through  bad  laws,  or  subjection  to  the  will 
of  others,  is  denied  the  liberty  to  use  the 
sources  of  happiness  within  his  reach,  he 
will  not  fail  to  find  this  enviable  existence, 


ITS  MEANING.  33 

if  he  escape  the  positive  evils  of  life,  the 
great  sources  of  physical  and  mental  suf- 
fering—  such  as  indigence,  disease,  and 
the  unkindness,  worthlessness,  or  prema- 
ture loss  of  objects  of  affection.  The 
main  stress  of  the  problem  lies,  therefore, 
in  the  contest  with  these  calamities,  from 
which  it  is  a  rare  good  fortune  entirely  to 
escape ;  which,  as  things  now  are,  cannot 
be  obviated,  and  often  cannot  be  in  any 
material  degree  mitigated.  JYet  no  one 
whose  opinion  deserves  a  moment's  con- 
sideration can  doubt  that  most  of  the 
great  positive  evils  of  the  world  are  in 
themselves  removable,  and  will,  if  human 
affairs  continue  to  improve,  be  in  the  end 
reduced  within  narrow  limitsj  Poverty, 
in  any  sense  implying  suffering,  may  be 
completely  extinguished  by  the  wisdom 
of  society,  combined  with  the  good  sense 
and  providence  of  individuals.  Even  that 
most  intractable  of  enemies,  disease,  may 
be  indefinitely  reduced  in  dimensions  by 
good  physical  and  moral  education,  and 
proper  control  of  noxious  influences  ;  while 
the  progress  of  science  holds  out  a  prom- 
ise for  the  future  of  still  more  direct  con- 


34  UTILITABIANISM. 

quests  over  this  detestable  foe.  And 
every  advance  in  that  direction  relieves 
us  from  some,  not  only  of  the  chances 
which  cat  short  our  own  lives,  but,  what 
concerns  us  still  more,  which  deprive 
us  of  those  in  whom  our  happiness  is 
wrapped  up.  As  for  vicissitudes  of  for- 
tune, and  other  disappointments  con- 
nected with  worldly  circumstances,  these 
are  principally  the  effect  either  of  gross 
imprudence,  of  ill-regulated  desires,  or  of 
bad  or  imperfect  social  institutions.  QAII 
the  grand  sources,  in  short,  of  human 
suffering  are  in  a  great  degree,  many  of 
them  almost  entirely,  conquerable  by  hu- 
man care  and  effortp  and  though  their 
removal  is  grievously  slow,  —  though  a 
long  succession  of  generations  will  perish 
in  the  breach  before  the  conquest  is  com- 
pleted, and  this  world  becomes  all  that, 
if  will  and  knowledge  were  not  wanting, 
it  might  easily  be  made,  — yet  every  mind 
sufficiently  intelligent  and  generous  to 
bear  a  part,  however  small  and  uncon- 
spicuous,  in  the  endeavor,  will  draw  a 
noble  enjoyment  from  the  contest  itself, 
which  he  would  not  for  any  bribe  in  the 


ITS  MEANING.  35 

form  of  selfish  indulgence  consent  to  be 
without. 

And  this  leads  to  the  true  estimation  of 
what  is  said  by  the  objectors  concerning 
the  possibility,  and  the  obligation,  of  learn_ 
ing  to  do  without  happiness.  Unquestion- 
ably it  is  possible  to  do  without  happiness  ; 
it  is  done  involuntarily  by  nineteen  twen- 
tieths of  mankind,  even  in  those  parts  of 
our  present  world  which  are  least  deep  in 
barbarism ;  and  it  often  has  to  be  done 
voluntarily  by  the  hero  or  the  martyr,  for 
the  sake  of  something  which  he  prizes 
more  than  his  individual  happiness.  But 
this  something,  what  is  it,  unless  the  hap- 
piness of  others,  or  some  of  the  requi- 
sites of  happiness?  It  is  noble  to  be 
capable  of  resigning  entirely  one's  own 
portion  of  happiness,  or  chances  of  it : 
but,  after  all,  this  self-sacrifice  must  be 
for  some  end  ;  it  is  not  its  own  end  ;  and 
if  we  are  told  that  its  end  is  not  happi- 
ness, but  virtue,  which  is  better  than  hap- 
piness, I  ask,  would  the  sacrifice  be  made 
if  the  hero  or  martyr  did  not  believe  that 
it  would  earn  for  others  immunity  from 
similar  sacrifices  ?      Would  it  be  made,  if 


36  UTILITABIANISM, 

he  thought  that  his  renunciation  of  happi- 
ness for  himself  would  produce  no  fruit  for 
any  of  his  fellow-creatures,  but  to  make 
their  lot  like  his,  and  place  them  also  in 
the  condition  of  persons  who  have  re- 
nounced happiness?  fAll  honor  to  those 
who  can  abnegate  for  tEem selves  the  per- 
sonal enjoyment  of  life,  when  by  such  re- 
nunciation they  contribute  worthily  to  in- 
crease the  amount  of  happiness  in  the 
world  ;  but  he  who  does  it,  or  professes  to 
do  it,  for  any  other  purpose,  is  no  more 
deserving  of  admiratkyi  than  the  ascetic 
mounted  on  his  pillar. y  He  may  be  an 
inspiriting  proof  of  wKat  men  can  do,  but 
assuredly  not  an  example  of  what  they 
should. 

Though  it  is  only  in  a  very  imperfect 
state  of  the  world's  arrangements  that  any 
one  can  best  serve  the  happiness  of  others 
by  the  absolute  sacrifice  of  his  own,  yet 
so  long^s  the  world  is  in  that  imperfect 
state  ,g^ully  acknowledge  that  the  readi- 
ness to  make  such  a  sacrifice  is  the  Mgh- 
est  virtue  which  can  be  found  in  rnanj  I 
will  add,  that  in  this  condition  of  the 
world,  paradoxical  as  the   assertion  may 


ITS  MEANING.  37 

be,  the  conscious  ability  to  do  without 
happiness  gives  the  best  prospect  of  real- 
izing such  happiness  as  is  attainable.  For 
nothing  except  that  consciousness  can  raise 
a  person  above  the  chances  of  life,  by 
making  him  feel  that,  let  fate  and  fortune 
do  their  worst,  they  have  not  power  to 
subdue  him :  which,  once  felt,  frees  him 
from  excess  of  anxiety  concerning  the  evils 
of  life,  and  enables  him,  like  many  a 
Stoic  in  the  worst  times  of  the  Eoman 
Empire,  to  cultivate  in  tranquillity  the 
sources  of  satisfaction  accessible  to  him, 
without  concerning  himself  about  the  un- 
certainty of  their  duration,  any  more  than 
about  their  inevitable  end. 

Meanwhile,  let  utilitarians  never  cease 
to  claim  the  morality  of  self-devotion  as 
a  possession  which  belongs  by  as  good  a 
right  to  them  as  either  tcvihe  Stoic  or 
to  the  Transcendental ist.  (The_utilitarian 
morality  does  recognize  in  human,  beings 
the  power  of  sacrificing  their  own  greatest 
good  for  the  good  of  others.  It  only  re- 
fuses to  admit  that  the  sacrifice  is  itself  a 
good.  A  sacrifice  which  does  not  in- 
crease, or  tend  to  increase,  the  sum  total 


38  UTILITABIANISM. 

of  happiness,  it  considers  as  wasted.  The 
only  self-renunciation  which  it  applauds, 
is  devotion  to  the  happiness,  or  to  some 
of  the  means  of  happiness,  of  others ; 
either  of  mankind  collectively,  or  of  in- 
dividuals within  the  limits  i noosed  by  the 
collective  interests  of  mankindy 
(l  must  again  repeat,  what  the  assailants 
of  utilitarianism  seldom  have  the  justice 
to  acknowledge,  that  the  happiness  which 
forms  the  utilitarian  standard  of  what  is 
right  in  conduct,  is  not  the  agent's  own 
happiness,  but  that  of  all  concerned.  As 
between  his  own  happiness  and  that  of 
others,  utilitarianism  requires  him  to  be 
as  strictly  impartial  as  a  disinterested  and 
benevolent  spectatorT^  In  the  golden  rule  ^ 
of  Jesus  of  Nazarem,  we  read  the  com- 
plete spirit  of  the  ethics  of  utility.  (^ 
do  as  one  would  be  done  by,  and  to  love 
one's  neighbor  as  one's  self,  constitute^  tlie 
ideal  perfection  of  utilitarian  moralityj 
^As  the  means  of  making  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  this  ideal,  utility  would  enjoin, 
first,  that  laws  and  social  arrangements 
should  place  the  happiness,  or  (as  speak- 
ing practically  it  may  be  called)  the  in- 


ITS  MEANING.  39 

terest,  of  every  individual  as  nearly  as 
possible  in  harmony  with  the  interest  of 
the  whole ;  and  secondly,  that  education 
and  opinion,  which  have  so  vast  a  power 
over  human  character,  should  so  use  that 
power  as  to  establish  in  the  mind  of 
every  individral  an  indissoluble  associa- 
tion between  his  own  happiness  and  the 
good  of  the  whole,  especially  between 
his  own  happiness  and  the  practice  of 
such  modes  of  conduct,  negative  and 
positive,  as  regard  for  the  universal  hap- 
piness prescribes  ;  so  that  not  only  he  may 
be  unable  to  conceive  the  possibility  of 
happiness  to  himself,  consistently  with 
conduct  opposed  to  the  general  good,  but 
also  that  a  direct  impulse  to  promote  the 
general  good  may  be  in  every  individual 
one  of  the  habitual  motives  of  action,  and 
the  sentiments  connected  therewith  may 
fill  a  large  and  prominent  place  in  every 
human  being's  sentient  existence.  If  the*^ 
impugners  of  the  utilitarian  morality  rep- 
resented it  to  their  own  minds  in  this  its 
true  character,  I  know  not  what  recom- 
mendation possessed  by  any  other  morality 
they  could  possibly  affirm  to  be  wanting 


40  UTILITABIANISM. 

to  it,  what  more  beautiful  or  more  ex- 
alted developments  of  human  nature  any 
other  ethical  system  can  be  supposed  to 
foster,  or  what  springs  of  action,  not  ac- 
cessible to  the  utilitarian,  such  systems 
rely  on  for  giving  effect  to  their  mandates. 
The  obi ectors_to^ utilitarianism  cannot 
always  be  charged  with  representing  it  in 
a  discreditable  light.  On  the  contrary, 
those  among  them  who  entertain  anything 
like  a  just  idea  of  its  disinterested  char- 
acter, sometimes  find  fault  withuts  stand- 
ard as  being  too  high  for  humanit;^  <(They 
say  it  is  exacting  too  much  to  require  that 
people  shall  always  act  from  the  induce- 
ment of  promoting  the  general  interests 
of  society j/  But  this  is  to  mistake  the 
ver}'"  meaning  of  a  standard  of  morals, 
and  to  confound  the  rule  of  action  with 
the  motive  of  it.  It  is  the  business  of 
ethics  to  tell  us  what  are  our  duties,  or  by 
what  test  we  may  know  them  ;  but  no 
system  of  ethics  requires  that  the  sole 
motive  of  all  we  do  shall  be  a  feeling  of 
duty ;  on  the  contrary,  ninety-nine  hun- 
dredths of  all  our  actions  are  done  from 
other  motives,  and  rightly  so  done,  if  the 


ITS  MEAmKQ.  41 

rule  of  duty  does  not  condemn  them,  (it 
is  the  more  unjust  to  utilitarianism  that 
this  particular  misapprehension  should  be 
made  a  ground  of  objection  to  it,  inasmuch 
as  utilitarian  moralists  have  gone  beyond  j 
almost  all  others  in  affirming  that  the! 
motive  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  morality/ 
of  the  action,  though  much  with  the  worth 
of  the  agent^  He  who  saves  a  fellow- 
creature  from  drowning  does  what  is  mor- 
ally right,  whether  his  motive  be  duty,  or 
the  hope  of  being  paid  for  his  trouble  ;  he 
who  betrays  the  friend  that  trusts  him,  is 
guilty  of  a  crime,  even  if  his  object  be  to 
serve  another  friend  to  whom  he  is  under 
greater  obligations.*     But  to  speak  only 

*  An  opponent,  whose  intellectual  and  moral  fair- 
ness it  is  a  pleasure  to  acknowledge  (the  Rev.  J. 
Llewelyn  Davies),  lias  objected  to  tMs  passage,  say- 
ing, "  Surely  the  rightness  or  wrongness  of  saving 
a  man  from  drowning  does  depend  very  much  upon 
the  motive  with  which  it  is  done.  Suppose  that  a 
tyrant,  when  his  enemy  jumped  into  the  sea  to  es- 
cape from  him,  saved  him  from  drowning  simply 
in  order  that  he  might  inflict  upon  him  more  ex- 
quisite tortures,  would  it  tend  to  clearness  to  speak 
of  that  rescue  as  '  a  morally  right  action  '?  Or  sup- 
pose again,  according  to  one  of  the  stock  illustra- 
tions of  ethical  inquiries,  that  a  man  betrayed  a 


42  UTILITARIANISM. 

of  actions  done  from  the  motive  of  duty, 
and  in  direct  obedience  to  principle  ;  it  is 
a  misapprehension  of  the  utilitarian  mode 
of  thought,  to  conceive  it  as  implying  that 
people  should  fix  their  minds  upon  so  wide 
a  generality  as  the  world,  or  society  at 
large.  J  The  great  majority  of  good  actions 
are  intended,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the 
world,  but  for  that  of  individuals,  of 
which  the  good  of  the  world  is  made  up ; 
and  the  thoughts  of  the  most  virtuous 
man  need  not  on  these  occasions  travel 
beyond  the  particular  persons  concerned, 
except  so  far   as   is   necessary  to  assure 

trust  received  from  a  friend,  because  the  discharge 
of  it  would  fatally  injure  that  friend,  himself  or 
some  one  belonging  to  him,  would  utilitarianism 
compel  one  to  call  the  betrayal '  a  crime  '  as  much  as 
if  it  had  been  done  from  the  meanest  motive?  " 

I  submit  that  he  who  saves  another  from  drown- 
ing in  order  to  kill  him  by  torture  afterwards,  does 
not  differ  only  in  motive  from  him  who  does  the 
same  thing  from  duty  or  benevolence ;  the  act  itself 
is  different.  The  rescue  of  the  man  is,  in  the  case 
supposed,  only  the  necessary  first  step  of  an  act  far 
more  atrocious  than  leaving  him  to^rown  would 
have  been.  Had  Mr.  Davie^  said,  'Qlhe  rightness 
or  wrongness  of  saving  a  man  from  drowning  does 
depend  very  much  "  —  not  upon  the  motive,  but  — 
"  upon  the  intention^  no  utilitarian  would  have  dif- 


ITS  MEANING.  43 

himself  that  in  benefiting  them  he  is  not 
violating  the  rights  —  that  is,  the  legiti- 
mate and  authorized  expectations  —  of 
any  one  else|  KThe  multiplication  of  hap- 
piness is,  according  to  the  utilitarian 
ethics,  the  object  of  virtue ;  the  occasions 
on  which  any  person  (except  one  in  a 
thousand)  has  it  in  his  power  to  do  this 
on  an  extended  scale,  in  other  words,  to 
be  a  public  benefactor,  are  but  excep- 
tional ;  and  on  these  occasions  alone  is  he 
called  on  to  consider  public  utility ;  in 
every  other  case, /private  utility,  the  in- 
terest or  happine&^  of  some  few  persons, 

ferecl  from  Mm.  Mr.  Davies,  by  an  oversight  too 
common  not  to  be  quite  venial,  has  in  this  case  con- 
founded the  very  different  ideas  of  motive  and  in- 
tention. C  There  is  no  point  vrhich  utilitarian 
thinkers  (and  Bentham  pre-eminently)  have  taken 
more  pains  to  illustrate  than  this.  The  morality  of 
the  action  depends  entu'ely  upon  the  intention  — 
that  is,  upon  what  the  agent  wills  to  do.  But  the 
motive,  that  is,  the  feeling  w^hich  makes  him  wUl 
so  to  do,  w^hen  it  makes  no  difference  in  the  act, 
makes  none  in  the  moralitj' ;  though  it  makes  a 
great  difference  in  our  moral  estimation  of  the 
agent,  especially  if  it  indicates  a  good  or  a  bad 
habitual  disposition  —  a  bent  of  character  from 
which  useful^  or  from  which  hm-tful  actions  are 
likely  to  ariseif 


44  UTILITABIANISM. 


is  all  he  has  to  attend  t(A  Those  alone 
the  influence  of  whose  acuons  extends  to 
society  in  general,  need  concern  them- 
selves habitually  about  so  large  an  object. 
In  the  case  of  abstinences  indeed  —  of 
things  which  people  forbear  to  do,  from 
moral  considerations,  though  the  conse- 
quences in  the  pai-ticular  case  might  be 
beneficial  —  it  would  be  unworthy  of  an 
intelligent  agent  not  to  be  consciously 
aware  that  the  action  is  of  a  class  which, 
if  practised  generally,  would  be  generally 
injurious,  and  that  this  is  the  ground  of 
the  obligation  to  abstain  from  it.  The 
amount  of  regard  for  the  public  interest 
implied  in  this  recognition,  is  no  greater 
than  is  demanded  by  every  system  of 
morals ;  for  they  all  enjoin  to  abstain 
from  whatever  is  manifestly  pernicious  to 
society.  ^^- 

The  same  considerations  dispose  of 
another  reproach  against  the  doctrine  of 
utility,  founded  on  a  still  grosser  miscon- 
ception of  the  purpose  of  a  standard  of 
morality,  and  of  the  very  meaning  of  the 
words  right  and  wrong.  It  is  often  af- 
firmed   that   ulilitarianism   renders     men 


.    ITS  MEANING.  45 

cold  and  unsympathizing ;  that  it  chills 
their  moral  feelings  towards  individuals  ; 
that  it  makes  them  regard  only  the  dry 
and  hard  consideration  of  the  conse- 
quences of  actions,  not  taking  into  their 
moral  estimate  the  qualities  from  which 
those  actions  emanate.  If  the  assertion 
means  that  they  do  not  allow  their  judg- 
ment respecting  the  rightness  or  wrong- 
ness  of  an  action  to  be  influenced  by  their 
opinion  of  the  qualities  of  the  person  who 
does  it,  this  is  a  complaint  not  against 
utilitarianism,  but  against  having  any 
standard  of  morality  at  all ;  for  certainly 
no  known  ethical  standard  decides  an  ac- 
tion to  be  good  or  bad  because  it  is  done 
by  a  good  or  a  bad  man,  still  less  because 
done  by  an  amiable,  a  brave,  or  a  benev- 
olent man,  or  the  contrary.  These  con- 
siderations are  relevant,  not  to  the  esti- 
mation of  actions,  but  of  persons  ;fand 
there  is  nothing  in  the  utilitarian  theory 
inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  there  are 
other  things  which  interest  us  in  persons 
besides  the  Tightness  and  wrongness  of 
their  actions^  The  Stoics,  indeed,  with 
the  paradoxical  misuse  of  language  which 


46  UTILITABIANISM. 

was  part  of  their  systera,  and  by  which 
they  strove  to  raise  themselves  above  all 
concern  about  anything  but  virtue,  were 
fond  of  saying  that  he  who  has  that  has 
everything ;  that  he,  and  only  he,  is  rich, 
is  beautiful,  is  a  king.  But  no  claim  of 
this  description  is  made  for  the  virtuous 
/man  by  the  utilitarian  doctrine.  {Utili- 
tarians are  quite  aware  that  there  are 
other  desirable  possessions  and  qualities 
besides  virtue,  and  are  perfectly  willing  , 
to  allow  to  all  of  them  their  full  worthy/ 
They  are  also  aware  that  a  right  action-i 
does  not  necessarily  indicate  a  virtu- 
ous character,  and  that  actions  which  are 
blamable  often  proceed  from  qualities  en- 
titled to  praiseX  When  this  is  apparent 
in  any  particular  case,  it  modifies  their 
estimation,  not  certainly  of  the  act,  but 
of  the  agent.  1 1  grant  that  th^y  are,  not^ 
withstanding,  of  opinion,  that  in  the  long 
run  the  best  proof  of  a  good  character  is 
good  actions/'  and  resolutely  refuse  to 
consider  any  mental  disposition  as  good, 
of  which  the  predominant  tendency  is  to 
produce  bad  conduct.  This  makes  them 
unpopular  with  many  people  ;  but  it  is  an 


ITS  MEANING.  47 

unpopularity  which  they  must  share  with 
every  one  who  regards  the  distinction  be- 
tween right  and  wrong  in  a  serious  light ; 
and  the  reproach  is  not  one  which  a  con- 
scientious utilitarian  need  be  anxious  to 
repel. 

If  no  more  be  meant  by  the  objection 
than  that  many  utilitarians  look  on  the 
morality  of  actions,  as  measured  by  the 
utilitarian  standard,  with  too  exclusive  a 
regard,  and  do  not  la}^  sufficient  stress 
upon  the  other  beauties  of  character  which 
go  towards  making  a  human  being  lovable 
or  admirable,  this  may  be  admitted.  Util- 
itarians who  have  cultivated  their  moral 
feelings,  but  not  their  sympathies  nor 
their  artistic  perceptions,  do  fall  into  this 
mistake ;  and  so  do  all  other  moralists 
under  the  same  conditions.  What  can  be 
said  in  excuse  for  other  moralists  is 
equally  available  for  them,  namely,  that 
if  there  is  to  be  any  error,  it  is  better  that 
it  should  be  on  that  side.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  we  may  affirm  that  among  utilitarians 
as  among  adherents  of  other  systems  there 
is  every  imaginable  degree  of  rigidity  and 
of  laxity  in  the  application  of  their  stand- 


48  UTILITABIAN18M. 

ard  ;  some  are  even  puritanically  rigorous ^ 
while  others  are  as  indulgent  as  can  possi- 
bly be  desired  by  sinner  or  by  sentimental- 
ist. But  on  the  whole,  a  doctrine  which 
brings  prominently  forward  the  interest 
that  mankind  have  in  the  repression  and 
prevention  of  conduct  which  violates  the 
moral  law  is  likely  to  be  inferior  to  no 
other  in  turning  the  sanctions  of  opinion 
against  such  violations.  It  is  ti'ue,  the 
question,  What  does  violate  the  moral  law  ? 
is  one  on  which  those  who  recognize  dif- 
ferent standards  of  morality  are  likely  now 
and  then  to  diifer.  But  difference  of  opin- 
ion on  moral  questions  was  not  first  intro- 
duced into  the  world  by  utilitarianism, 
while  that  doctrine  does  supply,  if  not 
always  an  easy,  at  all  events  a  tangible 
and  intelligible  mode  of  deciding  such  dif- 
ferences. 

It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  notice  a  few 
more  of  the  common  misapprehensions  of 
utilitarian  ethics,  even  those  which  are  so 
obvious  and  gross  that  it  might  appear 
impossible  for  any  person  of  candor  and 
intelligence  to  fall  into  them ;  since  per- 
sons, even  of  considerable  mental  endow- 


ITS  MEANING.  49 

ments,  often  give  themselves  so  little 
trouble  to  understand  the  bearings  of  any 
opinion  against  which  they  entertain  a  prej- 
udice and  men  are  in  general  so  little 
conscious  of  this  voluntary  ignorance  as  a 
defect,  that  the  vulgarest  misunderstand- 
ings of  ethical  doctrmes  are  continually 
met  with  in  the  deliberate  writings  of  per- 
sons of  the  gi^eatest  pretensions  both  to 
high  principle  and  to  philosophy./vYe  not 
uncommonly  hear  the  doctrine  oT^utility 
inveighed  against  as  a  godless  doctrineA 
If  it  be  necessary  to  say  anything  at  all 
against  so  mere  an  assumption,  we  may 
say  that  the  question  depends  upon  what 
idea  we  have  formed  of  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  Deity,  ^^it  be  a  true  belief 
that  God  desires,  above  all  things,  the 
happiness  of  his  creatures,  and  that  this 
was  his  purpose  in  their  creation,  utility  is 
not  only  not  a  godless  doctrine,  but  more 
profoundly  religious  than  any  othe^  If 
it  be  meant  that  utilitarianism  does  not 
recognize  the  revealed  will  of  God  as  the 
supreme  law  of  morals,  I  answer,  that  an 
utilitarian  who  believes  in  the  perfect  good- 
ness and  wisdom  of  God,  necessarily  be- 


50  UTILITABIANISM, 

lieves  that  whatever  Grod  lias  thought  fit 
to  reveal  on  tho  subject  of  morals,  must 
fulfil  the  requirements  of  utility  in  a  su- 
preme degree.  But  others  besides  utilita- 
rians have  been  of  opinion  that  the  Chris- 
tian revelation  was  intended,  and  is  fitted, 
to  inform  the  hearts  and  minds  of  mankind 
with  a  spirit  which  should  enable  them  to 
find  for  themselves  what  is  right,  and  in- 
cline them  to  do  it  when  found,  rather  than 
to  tell  them,  except  in  a  very  general  way, 
what  it  is  ;  and  that  we  need  a  doctrine  of 
ethics,  carefully  followed  out,  to  interpret 
to  us  the  will  of  God.  Whether  this  opin- 
ion is  correct  or  not,  it  is  superfluous  here 
to  discuss ;  since  whatever  aid  religion, 
either  natural  or  revealed,  can  afibrd  to 
ethical  investigation,  is  as  open  to  the  util- 
itarian moralist  as  to  any  other.  He  can 
use  it  as  the  testimony  of  God  to  the  use- 
fulness or  hurtfulness  of  any  given  course 
of  action,  by  as  good  a  right  as  others  can 
use  it  for  the  indication  of  a  transcenden- 
tal law,  having  no  connection  with  useful- 
ness or  with  happiness. 

Again,  Utility  is  often  summarily  stig- 
matized as  an  immoral  doctrine  by  giving 


ITS  MEANING.  51 

it  the  name  of  Expediency,  and  taking 
advantage  of  the  popular  use  of  that  term 
to  contrast  it  with  Principle.  But  the 
Expedient,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is  op- 
posed to  the  Eight,  generally  means  that 
which  is  expedient  for  the  particular  inter- 
est of  the  agent  him&elf ;  as  when  a  min- 
ister sacrifices  the  interest  of  his  country 
to  keep  himself  in  place.  When  it  means 
anything  better  than  this,  it  means  that 
which  is  expedient  for  some  immediate  ob- 
ject, some  temporary  purpose,  but  which 
violates  a  rule  whose  observance  is  expe- 
dient in  a  much  higher  degree.  The  Ex- 
pedient, in  this  sense,  instead  of  being  the 
same  thing  with  the  useful,  is  a  branch  of 
the  hurtful.  Thus,  it  would  often  be  ex- 
pedient, for  the  purpose  of  getting  over 
some  momentary  embarrassment,  or  attain- 
ing some  object  immediately  useful  to 
ourselves  or  others,  to  tell  a  lie.  (But  in- 
asmuch as  the  cultivation  in  ourselves  of  a 
sensitive  feeling  on  the  subject  of  veracity, 
is  one  of  the  most  useful,  and  the  enfeeble- 
ment  of  that  feeling  one  of  the  most  hurt- 
ful, things  to  which  our  conduct  can  be 
instrumentalH and  inasmuch  as  any,  even 


52  UTILITABIANISM. 


unintentional,  deviation  from  truth,  does 
that  much  towards  weakening  the/trust- 
worthiness  of  human  assertion,  which  is 
not  only  the  principal  support  of  all  pres- 
ent social  well-beingA  but  the  insufficiency 
of  which  does  more  than  any  one  thing 
that  can  be  named  to  keep  back  civiliza- 
tion, virtue,  everything  on  which,  human 
happiness  on  the  largest  scale  depends ; 
we  feel  that  the  violation,  for  a  present 
advantage,  of  a  rule  of  such  transcendent 
expediency,  is  not  expedient,  and  that  he 
who,  for  the  sake  of  a  convenience  to  him- 
self or  to  some  other  individual,  does  what 
depends  on  him  to  deprive  mankind  of  the 
good,  and  inflict  upon  them  the  evil,  in- 
volved in  the  greater  or  less  reliance 
which  they  can  place  in  each  other's  word, 
acts  thepart  of  one  of  their  worst  ene- 
mies. £Yet  that  even  this  rule,  sacred  as  it 
is,  admits  of  possible  exceptions,  is  ac- 
knowledged by  all  moralists  ;  the  chief  of 
which  is  when  the  withholding  of  some 
fact  (as  of  information  from  a  malefactor, 
or  of  bad  news  from  a  person  dangerously 
ill),  would  preserve  some  one  (especially 
a  person  other  than  one's  self),  from  great 


ITS  MEANma.  53 

and  unmerited  evil,  and  when  the  with* 
holding  can  only  be  effected  by  denjal.t  -— ^'-^ 
But  in  order  that  the  exception  may  not  (^ 
extend  itself  beyond  the  need,  and  may 
have  the  least  possible  effect  in  weakening 
reliance  on  veracity,  it  ought  to  be  recog- 
nized, and,  if  possible,  its  limits  defined ; 
and  if  the  principle  of  utility  is  good 
for  anything,  it  must  be  good  for  weigh- 
ino^  these  conflictino^  utilities  ao:ainst  one 
another,  and  marking  out  the  region  with- 
in which  one  or  the  other  preponderates. 

Again,  defenders  of  utility  often  find 
themselves  called  upon  to  reply  to  such 
objections  as  this  —  that  there  is  not  time, 
previous  to  action,  for  calculating  and 
weighing  the  effects  of  any  line  of  conduct 
on  the  general  happiness.  This  is  exactly 
as  if  any  one  were  to  say  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  guide  our  conduct  by  Christianity, 
because  there  is  not  time,  on  every  occa- 
sion on  which  anything  has  to  be  done,  to 
read  through  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments.  The  answer  to  the  objection  is, 
that  there  has  been  ample  time,  namely, 
the  whole  past  duration  of  the  human 
species.      During  all  that  time  mankind 


54  UTILITABIANISM, 

have  been  learning  by  experience  the  ten- 
dencies of  actions  ;  on  whicti  experience 
all  the  prudence,  as  well  as  all  the  morality 
of  life,  is  dependent.  People  talk  as  if 
the  commencement  of  this  com^se  of  ex- 
perience had  hitherto  been  put  off,  and  as 
if,  at  the  moment  when  some  man  feels 
tempted  to  meddle  with  the  property  or 
life  of  another,  he  had  to  begin  considering 
for  the  the  first  time  whether  murder  and 
theft  are  injurious  to  human  happiness. 
Even  then  I  do  not  think  that  he  would 
find  the  question  very  puzzling ;  but,  at 
all  events,  the  matter  is  now  done  to  his 
hand.  It  is  trul}^  a  whimsical  supposition, 
that  if  mankind  were  agreed  in  consider- 
ing utility  to  be  the  test  of  morality,  they 
would  remain  without  any  agreement  as  to 
what  is  useful,  and  would  take  no  meas- 
ures for  having  their  notions  on  the  subject 
taught  to  the  young,  and  enforced  by  law 
and  opinion.  There  is  no  difficulty  in 
proving  any  ethical  standard  whatever  to 
work  ill,  if  we  suppose  universal  idiocy 
to  be  conjoined  with  it^  but  on  any  hy- 
pothesis short  of  that, (mankind  must  by 
this  time  have  acquired  positive  beliefs  as 


ITS  MEANING.  55 

to  the  effects  of  some  actions  on  their  hap- 
piness ;  and  the  beliefs  wliich  have  thus 
come  down  are  the  rules  of  morality  for 
the  multitude,  and  for  the  philosopher 
until  he  has  succeeded  in  finding  better^ 
That  philosophers  might  easily  do  this, 
even  now,  on  many  subjects  ;  that  the  re- 
ceived code  of  ethics  is  by  no  means  of 
divine  right ;  and  that  mankind  have  still 
much  to  learn  as  to  the  effects  of  actions 
on  the  general  happiness,  I  admit,  or 
rather,  earnestly  maintain.  The  corol- 
laries from  the  principle  of  utility,  like 
the  precepts  of  every  practical  art,  admit 
of  indefinite  improvement,  and,  in  a  pro- 
gressive state  of  the  human  mind,  their 
improvement  is  perpetually  going  on.  But 
to  consider  the  rules  of  morality  as  im- 
provable, is  one  thing;  to  pass  over  the 
intermediate  generalizations  entirely,  and 
endeavor  to  test  each  individual  action 
directly  by  the  first  principle,  is  another. 
It  is  a  strange  notion  that  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  a  first  principle  is  inconsistent 
with  the  admission  of  secondary  ones. 
To  inform  a  traveller  respecting  the  place 
of  his  ultimate  destination,  is  not  to  forbid 


56  UTILITABIANISM. 

the  use  of  landmarks  and  direction-posts 
on  the  way.  The  proposition  that  happi- 
ness is  the  end  and  aim  of  morality,  does 
not  mean  that  no  road  ought  to  be  laid 
down  to  that  goal,  or  that  persons  going 
thither  should  not  be  advised  to  take  one 
direction  rather  than  another.  Men  really 
ought  to  leave  off  talking  a  kind  of  non- 
sense on  this  subject,  which  they  would 
neither  talk  nor  listen  to  on  other  matters 
of  practical  concernment.  Nobody  argues 
that  the  art  of  navigation  is  not  founded 
on  astronomy,  because  sailors  cannot  wait 
to  calculate  the  Nautical  Almanac.  Being 
rational  creatures,  they  go  to  sea  with  it 
'  ready  calculated ;  and  all  rational  crea- 
tures  go  out  upon  the  sea  of  life  with  their 
minds  made  up  on  the  common  questions 
of  right  and  wrong,  as  well  as  on  many 
of  the  far  more  difficult  questions  of  wise 
and  foolish.  And  this,  as  long  as  fore- 
sight is  a  human  quality,  it  is  to  bg  pre- 
sumed they  will  continue  to  do.  nVhat- 
ever  we  adopt  as  the  fundamental  princi- 
ple of  morality,  we  require  subordinate 
principles  to  apply  it  by ;  the  impossibil- 
ity of  doing  without  them,  being  common 


ITS  MEANING.  57 

to  all  systems,  can  aftbrcl  no  argument 
against  any  one  in  particular  ;  but  gravely 
to  argue  as  if  no  such  secondary  princi- 
ples could  be  had,  and  as  if  mankind  had 
remained  till  now,  and  always  must  remain, 
without  drawing  any  general  conclusions 
from  the  experience  of  human  life,  is  as 
high  a  pitch,  I  think,  as  absurdity  has 
ever  reached  in  philosophical  controversy^ 
The  remamder  of  the  stock  arguments 
against  utilitarianism  mostly  consist  in 
laying  to  its  charge  the  common  infirmi- 
ties of  human  nature,  and  the  general 
difficulties  which  embarrass  conscientious 
persons  in  shaping  their  course  through 
life.  We  are  told  that  an  utilitarian  will 
be  apt  to  make  his  own  particular  case  an 
exception  to  moral  rules,  and,  when  under 
temptation,  will  see  an  utility  m  the 
breach  of  a  rule,  greater  than  he  will  see 
in  its  observance.  But  is  utility  the  only 
creed  which  is  able  to  furnish  us  with  ex- 
cuses for  evil  doing,  and  means  of  cheat- 
ing our  own  conscience  ?  They  are  afforded 
in.  abundance  by  all  doctrines  which(rec- 
ognize  as  a  fact  in  morals  the  existence 
of    conflicting   considerations^   which    ail 


58  UTILlfABIANISM. 

doctrines  do,  that  have  been  believed  by 
sane  persons,  ^t  is  not  the  fault  of  any 
creed,  but  of  the  complicated  nature  of 
human  affairs,  that  rules  of  conduct  cannot 
be  so  framed  as  to  require  no  exceptions, 
and  that  hardly  any  kind  of  action  can 
safely  be  laid  down  as  either  alwaj'S  oblig- 
atory or  always  condemnablej (There  is 
no  ethical  creed  which  does  not  temper 
the  rigidity  of  its  laws,  by  giving  a  cer- 
tain latitude,  under  the  moral  responsibil- 
ity of  the  agent,  for  accommodation  to 
peculiarities  of  circumstances ;  and  under 
every  creed,  at  the  opening  thus  made ,  self- 
deception  and  dishoaest  casuistry  get  in. 
There  exists  no  moral  system  under  which 
there  do  not  arise  unequivocal  cases  of 
conflicting  obligation^  These  are  the  real 
difficulties,  the  knotty  points  both  in  the 
theory  of  ethics,  and  in  the  conscientious 
guidance  of  personal  conduct.  They  are 
overcome  practically  with  greater  or  with 
less  success  according  to  the  intellect  and 
virtue  of  the  individual ;  but  it  can  hardly 
be  pretended  that  anyone  will  be  the  less 
qualified  for  dealing  with  them,  from  pos- 
sessing an  ultimate  standard  to  which  con- 


ITS  MEANING.  59 

flicting  rights  and  duties  can  be  referred. 
If  utility  is  the  ultimate  source  of  moral 
obh'gations,  utility  may  be  invoked  to 
decide  between  them  when  their  demands 
are  incompatible.  Though  the  application 
of  the  standard  may  be  difficult,  it  is 
better  than  none  at,  all;  while  in  other 
systems,  the  moral  laws  all  claiming  in- 
dependent authority,  there  is  no  common 
umpire  entitled  to  interfere  between  them  ; 
their  claims  to  precedence  one  over  another 
rest  on  little  better  than  sophistry,  and 
unless  determined,  as  they  generally  are, 
by  the  unacknowledged  influence  of  con- 
siderations of  utility,  afford  a  free  scope 
for  the  action  of  personal  desires  and  par- 
tialities. We  must  remember  that  only 
in  these  cases  of  conflict  between  second- 
ary principles  is  it  requisite  that  first  prin- 
ciples should  be  appealed  to.  There  is  no 
case  of  moral  obligation  in  which  some 
secondary  principle  is  not  involved;  and 
if  only  one,  there  can  seldom  be  any  real 
doubt  which  one  it  is,  in  the  mind  of  any 
person  by  whom  the  principle  itself  is 
recognized. 


CHAPTER  III. 

OF   THE   ULTIMATE    SAJS^CTION    OF   THE   PIlINCn>LE 
OF   UTILITY. 

The  question  is  often  asked,  and  prop- 
erly so,  in  regard  to  any  supposed  moral 
standard  —  What  is  its  sanction  ?  what  are 
the  motives  to  obey  it  ?  or  more  specifi- 
cally, what  is  the  source  of  its  obligation  ? 
whence  does  it  derive  its  binding  force? 
It  is  a  necessary  part  of  moral  philosophy 
to  provide  the  answer  to  this  question ; 
which,  though  frequently  assuming  the 
shape  of  an  objection  to  the  utilitarian 
morality,  as  if  it  had  some  special  appli- 
cability to  that  above  others,  really  arises 
in  regard  to  all  standards.  It  arises,  in 
fact,  whenever  a  person  is  called  on  to 
adopt  a  standard  or  refer  morality  to  any 
basis  on  which  he  has  not  been  accustomed 
to  rest  it.  For  the  customary  morality, 
that  which  education   and    opinion    have 


ITS  SANCTIONS.  61 

consecrated,  is  the  only  one  which  pre- 
sents itself  to  the  mind  with  the  feeling 
of  being  in  itself  obligatory ;  and  when  a 
person  is  asked  to  believe  that  this  moral- 
ity derives  its  obligation  from  some  gen- 
eral principle  round  w^hich  custom  has  not 
thrown  the  same  halo,  the  assertion  is  to 
him  a  paradox ;  the  supposed  corollaries 
seem  to  have  a  more  binding  force  than 
the  original  theorem ;  the  superstructure 
seems  to  stand  better  without,  than  with, 
what  is  represented  as  its  foundation.  He 
says  to  himself,  I  feel  that  I  am  bound 
not  to  rob  or  murder,  betray  or  deceive ; 
but  why  am  I  bound  to  promote  the  gen- 
eral happiness?  If  my  own  happiness 
lies  in  something  else,  why  may  I  not 
give  that  the  preference  ? 

If  the  view  adopted  by  the  utilitarian 
philosophy  of  the  nature  of  the  moral 
sense  be  correct,  this  diffculty  will  always 
present  itself,  until  the  influences  which 
form  moral  character  have  taken  the  same 
hold  of  the  principle  which  they  have 
taken  of  some  of  the  consequences  — 
until,  by  the  improvement  of  education, 
the  feeling  of  unity  with  our  fellow-crea- 


62  UTILITABIANISM. 

tures  shall  be  (what  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  Christ  intended  it  to  be)  as  deeply 
rooted  in  our  character,  and  to  our  own 
consciousness  as  completely  a  part  of  our 
nature,  as  the  horror  of  crime  is  in  an 
ordinarily  well-brought-up  young  person. 
In  the  mean  time,  however,  the  difficulty 
has  no  peculiar  application  to  the  doctrine 
of  utility,  but  is  inherent  in  every 
attempt  to  analyze  morality  and  reduce  it 
to  principles ;  which,  unless  the  principle 
is  already  in  men's  minds  invested  with 
as  much  sacredness  as  any  of  its  applica- 
tions, always  seems  to  divest  them  of  a 
part  of  their  sanctity. 

^he  principle  of  utility  either  has,  or 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  might  not  have, 
all  the  sanctions  which  belong  to  any  other 
system  of  mora^^  Those  sanctions  are 
either  external  or  internal.  Of  the  exter- 
nal sanctions  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak 
at  any  length.  (They  are,  the  hope  of 
favor  and  the  fear  of  displeasure  from  our 
fellow-creatures  or  from  the  Ruler  of  the 
Universe,  along  with  whatever  we  may 
have  of  sympathy  or  affection  for  them  or 
of  love  and  awe  of  Hiui,  inclining  us  to 


ITS  SANCTIONS.  63 

do  His  will  independently  of  selfish  con- 
sequences/) There  is  evidently  no  reason 
why  all  these  motives  for  observance 
should  not  attach  themselves  to  the  utili- 
tarian morality,  as  completely  and  as 
powerfully  as  to  any  other.  Indeed,  those 
of  them  which  refer  to  our  fellow-crea- 
tures are  sure  to  do  so,  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  of  general  intelligence ;  for 
whether  there  be  any  other  ground  of 
moral  obligation  than  the  general  happi- 
ness or  not,  men  do  desire  happiness  ;  and 
however  imperfect  may  be  their  own  prac- 
tice, they  desire  and  commend  all  conduct 
in  others  towards  themselves,  by  which 
they  think  their  happiness  is  promoted. 
With  regard  to  the  religious  motive,  if 
men  believe,  as  most  profess  to  do,  in  the 
goodness  of  God,  those  who  think  that 
conduciveness  to  the  general  happiness  is 
the  essence,  or  even  only  the  criterion,  of 
good,  must  necessarily  believe  that  it  is 
also  that  which  God  approves.  The  whole 
force  therefore  of  external  reward  and 
punishment,  whether  physical  or  nKr-l, 
and  whether  proceeding  from  God  or  from 
our  fellow-men,  together  with  all  that  the 


64  UTILITABIANI8M. 

capacities  of  human  nature  admit,  of  dis- 
interested devotion  to  either,  become 
available  to  enforce  the  utilitarian  moral- 
ity, in  proportion  as  that  morality  is  rec- 
ognized ;  and  the  more  powerfully,  the 
more  the  appliances  of  education  and  gen- 
eral cultivation  are  bent  to  the  purpose. 

So  far  as  to  external  sanctions.  The 
internal  sanction  of  duty,  whatever  our 
standard  of  duty  may  be,  is  one  and  the 
same — n,  f^pling  in  our  own  mind  ;  a  pain, 
more  or  less  intense,  attendant  on  viola- 
tion of  duty,  which  in  properly  cultivated 
moral  natures  rises,  in  the  more  serious 
cases,  into  shrinking  from  it  as  an  impos- 
sibihty.  This  feeling,  w^hen  disinterested, 
and  connecting  itself  with  the  pure  idea 
of  duty,  and  not  with  some  particular  form 
of  it,  or  with  any  of  the  merely  acces- 
sory circumstances,  is  the  essence  of  Con- 
science ;  though  in  that  complex  phe- 
nomenon as  it  actually  exists,  the  simple 
fact  is  in  general  all  encrusted  over  with 
collateral  associations,  derived  from  sym- 
pathy, from  love,  and  still  more  from 
fear ;  from  all  the  forms  of  religious  feel- 
ing ;   from  the  recollections  of  childhood 


ITS  SANCTIONS,  65 

and  of  all  oar  past  life  ;  from  self-esteem, 
desire  of  the  esteem  of  others,  aud  occa- 
sionally even  self-abasement.  This  ex- 
treme complication  is,  I  apprehend,  the 
origin  of  the  sort  of  mystical  character 
which,  by  a  tendency  of  the  human  mind, 
of  which  there  are  many  other  examples, 
is  apt  to  be  attributed  to  the  idea  of  moral 
obligation,  and  which  leads  people  to  be- 
lieve that  the  idea  cannot  possibly  attach 
itself  to  any  other  objects  than  those  which, 
by  a  supposed  mysterious  law,  are  found 
in  our  present  experience  to  excite  it.  qTs 
binding  force,  however,  consists  in  the 
existence  of  a  mass  of  feeling  w^hich  must 
be  broken  through  in  order  to  do  what 
violates  our  standard  of  right,  and  which, 
if  we  do  nevertheless  violate  that  stand- 
ard, will  probably  have  to  be  encountered 
afterwards  in  the  form  of  remorse)  What- 
ever theory  we  have  of  the  nature  or  ori- 
gin of  conscience,  this  is  what  essentially 
constitutes  it. 

/The  ultimate  sanction,  therefore,  of  all 
morality  (external  motives  apart)  being 
a  subjective  feeling  in  our  own  mindsl  I 
see  nothing  embarrassing  to  those  wEose 


QQ  UTILITABIANISM. 

standard  is  utility,  in  the  question,  what 
is  the  sanction  of  that  particular  standard? 
We  may  answer,  the  same  as  of  all  other 
moral  standard^ — mie  conscientious  feel- 
ings of  mankind^  Undoubtedly  this  sanc- 
tion has  no  binding  efficacy  on  those  who 
do  not  possess  the  feelings  it  appeals  to ; 
but  neither  will  these  persons  be  more 
obedient  to  any  other  moral  principle  than 
to  the  utilitarian  one.  On  them  morality 
of  any  kind  has  no  hold  but  through  the 
external  sanctions.  Meanwhile  the  feel- 
ings exist,  a  fact  in  human  nature,  the 
reality  of  which,  and  the  great  power 
with  which  they  are  capable  of  acting  on 
those  in  whom  they  have  been  duly  culti- 
vated, are  proved  by  experience.  No 
reason  has  ever  been  shown  why  they 
may  not  be  cultivated  to  as  great  intensity 
m  connection  with  the  utilitarian  as  with 
any  other  rule  of  morals. 

There  is,  I  am  aware,  a  disposition  to 
believe  that  a  person  who  sees  in  moral 
obligation  a  transcendental  fact,  an  objec- 
tive reality  belonging  to  the  province  of 
"Things  in  themselves,"  is  likely  to  be 
more  obedient  to  it  than  one  who  believes 


ITS  sa:^ctions.  67 

it  to  be  entirely  subjective,  having  its  seat 
in  human  consciousness  only.  But  what- 
ever a  person's  opinion  may  be  on  this 
point  of  Ontology,  the  force  he  is  really 
urged  by  is  his  own  subjective  feeling, 
and  is  exactly  measured  by  its  strength. 
No  one's  belief  that  Duty  Is  an  objective 
reality  is  stronger  than  the  belief  that 
God  is  so ;  yet  the  belief  in  God,  apart 
from  the  expectation  of  actual  reward  and 
punishment,  only  operates  on  conduct 
through  and  in  proportion  to  the  subjec- 
tive religious  feeling.  The  sanction,  so 
far  as  it  is  disinterested,  is  always  in  the 
mind  itself:  and  the  notion,  therefore,  of 
the  transcendental  moralist  must  be  that 
this  sanction  will  not  exist  in  the  mind 
unless  it  is  believed  to  have  its  root  out 
of  the  mind ;  and  that  if  a  person  is  able 
to  say  to  himself,  That  which  is  restrain- 
ing me,  and  which  is  called  my  conscience, 
is  only  a  feeling  in  my  own  mind,  he 
may  possibly  draw  the  conclusion  that 
Q\^hen  the  feeling  ceases  the  obligation 
ceases,  and  that  if  he  find  the  feehng 
inconvenient,  he  may  disregard  it  and 
endeavor   to  get  rid  of  ItT)    But  is  this 


68  UTILITABIANISM. 

danger  confined  to  the  utilitarian  morality? 
Does  the  belief  that  moral  obligation  has 
its  seat  outside  the  mind  make  the  feeling 
of  it  too  strong  to  be  got  rid  of?  The 
fact  is  so  far  otherwise  that  all  moralists 
admit  and  lament  the  ease  with  which,  in 
the  generality  of  minds,  conscience  can 
be  silenced  or  stifled.  The  question.  Need 
I  obey  my  conscience?  is  quite  as  often 
put  to  themselves  by  persons  who  never 
heard  of  the  principle  of  utility,  as  by 
its  adherents.  Those  whose  conscientious 
feelings  are  so  weak  as  to  allow  of  their 
asking  this  question,  if  they  answer  it 
affirmatively,  will  not  do  so  because  they 
believe  in  the  transcendental  theory,  but 
because  of  the  external  sanctions. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  present  pur- 
pose to  decide  whether  the  ieeling  of  duty 
is  in^]ptf^  or  implanted.  Assuming  it 
to  be  innate,  it  is  an  open  question  to 
what  objects  it  naturally  attaches  itself; 
for  the  philosophic  supporters  of  that 
theory  are  now  agreed  that  the  intuitive 
perception  is  of  principles  of  morality, 
and  not  of  the  details.  ^If  there  be  any- 
thing innate  in  the  matter,  I  see  no  reason 


ITS  SAJVCTIONS.  69 

why  the  feeling  which  is  innate  should 
not  be  that  of  regard  to  the  pleasures  and 
pains  of  others?^  If  there  is  any  prin- 
ciple of  morals  which  is  intuitively  obli- 
gatory, I  should  say  it  must  be  that.  If 
so,  the  intuitive  ethics  would  coincide 
with  the  utilitarian,  and  there  would  be 
no  further  quarrel  between  them.  Even 
as  it  is,  the  intuitive  moralists,  though 
they  believe  that  there  are  other  intuitive 
moral  obligations,  do  already  believe  this 
to  be  one  ;  for  they  unanimously  hold  that 
a  large  portion  of  morality  turns  upon  the 
consideration  due  to  the  interests  of  our 
fellow-creatures.  Therefore,  if  the  belief 
in  the  transcendental  origin  or  moral  obli- 
gation gives  an  additional  efficacy  to  the 
internal  sanction,  it  appears  to  me  that 
the  utilitarian  principle  has  already  the 
benefit  of  it. 

[On  the  other  hand,  if,  as  is  my  own  be-  , 
lief,  the  moral  feelings  are  not  innate,  but  I    ./ 
acquired,  they  are  not  for  that  reason  the  } 
less    naturay     It    is    natural   to   man   to 
speak,  to  reason,  to  build  cities,  to  culti- 
vate the  ground,  though  these  are  acquired 
faculties.      The  moral   feelings    are    not 


70  UTILITABIANISM. 

indeed  a  part  of  our  nature,  in  the  sense 
of  being  in  any  perceptible  degree  present 
in  ail  of  us ;  but  this,  unhappily,  is  a  fact 
admitted  by  those  who  believe  the  most 
strenuously  in  their  transcendental  origin. 
/Like  the  other  acquired  capacities  above 
referred  to,  the  moral  faculty,  if  not  a  part 
of  our  nature,  is  a  natural  outgrowth  from 
it ;  capable,  like  them,  in  a  certain  small 
degree,  of  springing  up  spontaneously; 
land  susceptible  of  being  brought  by  culti- 
ivation  to  a  high  degree  of  development. 
Unhappily  it  is  also  susceptible,  by  a  suf- 
ficient use  of  the  external  sanctions  and 
of  the  force  of  early  impressions,  of  being 
cultivated  in  almost  any  direction  ;  so  that 
there  is  hardly  anything  so  absurd  or  so 
mischievous  that  it  may  not,  by  means  of 
these  influences, (be  made  to  act  on  the 
humaiq^ind  with  all  the  authority  of  con- 
science^ To  doubt  that  the  same  potency 
might  be  given  by  the  same  means  to  the 
principle  of  utility,  even  if  it  had  no  foun- 
dation in  human  nature,  would  be  flying 
in  the  face  of  all  experience. 

But  mornl  associations  which  are  wholly 
of  artificial  creation,  when  intellectual  cul-. 


ITS  SANCTIONS.  71 

ture  goes  on,  yield  by  degrees  to  the  dis- 
solving force  of  analysis  ;  and  if  the  feel- 
ing of  diit}^  when  associated  with  utility, 
would  appear  equally  arbitrary ;  if  there 
were  no  leading  department  of  our  nature, 
no  powerful  class  of  sentiments,  with 
which  that  association  would  harmonize, 
which  would  make  us  feel  it  congenial, 
and  incline  us  not  only  to  foster  it  in 
others  (for  which  we  have  abundant  inter- 
ested motives),  but  also  to  cherish  it  in 
ourselves  ;  gf  there  were  not,  in  short,  a 
natural  basis  of  sentiment  for  utilitarian 
morality,  it  might  well  happen  that  this 
association  also,  even  after  it  had  been 
implanted  by  education,  might  be  ana- 
lyzed away\) 

r^ut  there  is  this  basis  of  powerful  nat- 
iral  sentiment ;  and  this  it  is  which,  when 
once  the  general  happiness  is  recognized 
as  the  ethical  standard,  will  constitute  the 
(strength  of  the  utilitarian  morality.  This 
firm  foundation  is  that  of  the  social  feel- 
ings of  mankind  ;  the  desire  to  be  in  unity 
with  our  fellow-creatures,  which  is  already 
a  powerful  principle  in  human  nature,  and 
happily  one  of  those  which  tend  to  become 


72  UTILITABIANISM. 

stronger,  even  without  express  inculcation, 
from  the  influences  of  advancinoj  civiliza- 
tion.  (jThe  social  state  is  at  once  so  nat- 
ural, so  necessary,  and  so  habitual  to 
man,  that,  except  in  some  unusual  circum- 
stances  or  by  an  .  effort  of  voluntary  ab- 
straction, he  never  conceives  himself 
otherwise  than  as  a  member  of  a  bodjjf 
and  this  association  is  riveted  more  and 
more,  as  mankind  are  further  removed 
from  the  state  of  savage  independence. 
Any  condition,  therefore,  which  is  essen- 
tial to  a  state  of  society,  becomes  more 
and  more  an  inseparable  part  of  every 
person's  conception  of  the  state  of  things 
which  he  is  born  into,  and  which  is  the 
destiny  of  a  human  being. 
ANow,  society  between  human  beings, 
except  in  the  relation  of  master  and  slave, 
is  manifestly  impossible  on  any  other  foot- 
ing than  that  the  interests  of  all  are  to  be 
consulted.)/  Society  between  equals  can 
only  exist  on  the  understanding  that  the 
interests  of  all  are  to  be  regarded  equally./ 
And  since  in  all  states  of  civilization, 
every  person,  except  an  absolute  monarch, 
has  equals,  every  one  is  obliged  to  live  on 


ITS  SANCTION'S.  73 

these  terms  with  somebody  ;  and  in  every 
age  some  advance  is  made  towards  a  state 
in  which  it  w41l  be  impossible  to  live  per- 
manently on  other  terms  with  anybody. 
In  this  way  people  grow  up  unable  to 
conceive  as  possible  to  them  a  state  of 
total  disregard  of  other  people's  interests. 
They  are  under  a  necessity  of  conceiving 
themselves  as  at  least  abstaining  from  all 
the  grosser  injuries,  and  (if  only  for  their 
own  protection)  living  in  a  state  of  con- 
stant protest  against  them.  \They  are  also 
familiar  with  the  fact  of  co-operating  with 
others,  and  proposing  to  themselves  a  col- 
lective, not  an  individual  interest,  as  the 
aim  (atleast  for  the  time  being)  of  their 
action^  So  long  as  they  are  co-operating, 
their  erms  are  identified  with  those  of 
others  ;  there  is  at  least  a  temporary  feel- 
ing that  t^  interests  of  others  are  their 
own  interests^  Xot  only  does  all  strength- 
ening of  social  ties,  and  all  healthy  growth 
of  society,  give  to  each  individual  a 
stronger  personal  interest  in  practically 
consulting  the  welfare  of  others  ;  it  also 
leads  him  to  identify  his  feelings  more  and 
more  with  their  good,  or  at  least  with  an 


74  UTILITABIANISM, 

ever-greater  degree  of  practical  consider- 
ation for  it.  He  comes,  as  though  instinc- 
tively, to  be  conscious  of  himself  as  a 
being  who  of  course  pays  regard  to  others.  / 
The  good  of  others  becomes  to  him  a  thing  ' 
naturally  and  necessarily  to  be  attended 
to,  like  any  of  the. physical  conditions  of 
our  existence.  [N'ow,  whatever  amount  of 
this  feeling  a  person  has,  he  is  urged  by 
the  strongest  motives  both  of  interest  and 
of  sympathy  to  demonstrate  it,  and  to  the 
utmost  of  his  power  encourage  it  in 
others  ;  and  even  if  he  has  none  of  it  him- 
self, he  is  as  greatly  interested  as  any  one 
else  that  others  should  have  it.  Conse 
quently,  the  smallest  germs  of  the  feeling 
are  laid  hold  of  and  nourished  by  the  con 
tagion  of  sympathy  and  the  influences  of 
education  ;  and  a  complete  web  of  corrob- 
orative association  is  woven  round  it,  by 
the  powerful  agency  of  the  external  sane 
tions.  This  mode  of  conceivins;  ourselves 
and  human  life,  as  civilization  goes  on,  is 
felt  to  be  more  and  more  natural.  ^  Every 
step  in  political  improvement  renders  it 
more  so,  by  removing  the  sources  of  oppo- 
sition of  interest,  and  levelling  those  ine- 


ITS  SANOTIONS.  75 

qualities  of  legal  privilege  between  indi- 
viduals or  classes,  owing  to  which  there 
are  large  portions  of  mankind  whose  hap- 
piness it  is  still  practicable  to  disregard: 
In  an  improving  state  of  the  human  mind, 
the  influences  are  constantly  on  the  in- 
crease, which  tend  to  generate  in  each 
individual  a  feeling  of  unity  with  all  the 
rest ;  which  feeling,  if  perfect,  would 
make  him  never  think  of,  or  desire,  any 
beneficial  condition  for  himself,  in  the 
benefits  of  which  they  are  not  included. 
If  we  now  suppose  this  feeling  of  unity  to 
be  taught  as  a  religion,  and  the  whole 
force  of  education,  of  institutions,  and  of 
opinion,  directed,  as  it  once  was  in  the 
case  of  religion,  to  make  every  person 
grow  up  from  infancy  surrounded  on  all 
sides  both  by  the  profession  and  by  the 
practice  of  it,  I  think  that  no  one,  who  can 
realize  this  conception,  will  feel  any  mis- 
giving about  the  sufiiciency  of  the  ultimate 
sanction  for  the  Happiness  morality.  To 
any  ethical  student  who  finds  the  realiza- 
tion difficult,  I  recommend,  as  a  means  of 
facilitating  it,  the  second  of  M.  Comte's 
two  principal  works,  the  Si/steme  de  Poli- 


76  UTILITARIANISM. 

tique  Positive,  I  entertain  the  strongest 
objections  to  the  system  of  politics  and 
morals  set  forth  in  that  treatise ;  but  I 
think  it  has  superabundantly  shown  the 
possibility  of  giving  to  the  service  of  hu- 
manity, even  without  the  aid  of  belief  in  a 
Providence,  both  the  physical  power  and 
the  social  efficacy  of  a  religion ;  making  it 
take  hold  of  human  life,  and  color  all 
thought,  feeling,  and  action,  in  a  manner 
of  which  the  greatest  ascendency  ever  ex- 
ercised by  any  religion  may  be  but  a  type 
and  foretaste  ;  and  of  which  the  danger  is, 
not  that  it  should  be  insufficient,  but  that 
it  should  be  so  excessive  as  to  interfere 
unduly  with  human  freedom  and  individ- 
uality. 

Neither  is  it  necessary  to  the  feeling 
which  constitutes  the  binding  force  of  the 
utilitarian  morality  on  those  who  recognize 
it,  to  wait  for  those  social  influences  which 
would  make  its  obligation  felt  by  mankind 
at  large.  In  the  comparatively  early  state 
of  human  advancement  in  which  vre  now 
live,  a  person  cannot  indeed  feci  that 
entireness  of  sympathy  with  all  others, 
which  would   make  any  real  discordance 


ITS  SANCTION'S.  77 

in  the  general  direction  of  their  conduct 
in  life  impossible  ;  but  already  a  person  in 
whom  the  social  feeling  is  at  all  developed, 
cannot  bring  himself  to  think  of  the  rest 
of  his  fellow-creatures  as  struo^o:lino:  rivals 
w^ith  him  for  the  means  of  happiness, 
whom  he  must  desire  to  see  defeated  in 
their  obje^  in  order  that  he  may  succeed 
in  his.  ^)The  deeply  rooted  conception 
which  every  individual  even  now  has  of 
himself  as  a  social  being,  tends  to  make 
him  feel  it  one  of  his  natural  wants  that 
there  should  be  harmony  between  his  feel- 
ings qjkI  aims  and  those  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures^ If  differences  of  opinion  and  of 
mental  culture  make  it  impossible  for  him 
to  share  many  of  their  actual  feelings,  — 
perhaps  make  him  denounce  and  defy 
those  feelings,  —  he  still  needs  to  be  con- 
scious that  his  real  aim  and  theirs  do  not 
conflict ;  that  he  is  not  opposing  himself 
to  what  they  really  wish  for,  namely,  their 
own  good,  but  is,  on  the  contrary,  pro- 
moting it.  This  feeling  in  most  individu- 
als is  much  inferior  in  strength  to  their 
selfish  feelings,  and  is  often  wanting  alto- 
gether.*^ But  to  those  Avho  have  it,  it  pos- 


78  UTILITABIANISM, 

sesses  all  the  characters  of  a  natural  feel-  \ 
ing.  It  does  not  present  itself  to  their 
minds  as  a  superstition  of  education,  or  a 
law  despotically  imposed  by  the  power  of 
society, [but  as  an  attribute  which  it  would 
not  be  well  for  them  to  be  without.  This 
conviction  is  the  ultimate  sanction  of  the 
greatest-happiness  morali^ty^  This  it  is 
which  makes  any  mind,  ot  well-developed 
feelings,  work  with,  and  not  against,  the 
outward  motives  to  care  for  others,  af- 
forded by  what  I  have  called  the  external 
sanctions ;  and  w^hen  those  sanctions  are 
Tvanting,  or  act  in  an  opposite  direction, 
constitutes  in  itself  a  powerful  internal 
binding  force,  in  proportion  to  the  sensi- 
tiveness and  thoughtfulness  of  the  char- 
acter ;  since  few  but  those  whose  mind  is 
a  moral  blank,  could  bear  to  lay  out  their 
course  of  life  on  the  plan  of  paying  no 
regard  to  others  except  so  far  as  their  own 
private  interest  compels. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

OF   WHAT    SORT     OF     PROOF    THE    PRINCIPLE     OF 
UTILITY    IS     SUSCEPTIBLE. 

It  has  already  been  remarked,  that 
questions  of  ultimate  ends  do  not  admit  of 
proof,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the 
term.  To  be  incapable  of  proof  by  rea- 
soning is  common  to  all  first  principles ; 
to  the  first  premises  of  our  knowledge,  as 
well  as  to  those  of  our  conduct.  But  the 
former,  being  matters  of  fact,  may  be  the 
subject  of  a  direct  appeal  to  the  faculties 
which  judge  cf  fact,  namely,  our  senses, 
and  our  internal  consciousness.  Can  an 
appeal  be  made  to  tne  same  faculties  on 
questions  of  practical  ends.  Or  by  what 
other  faculty  is  cognizance  taken  of  them  ? 
(Questions  about  ends  are,  in  other 
words,  questions  what  things  are  desira- 
ble.) The  utilitarian  doctrine  is,  that  hap- 
piness is  desirable,  and  the  only  thing  de- 
sirable, as  an  end;  all  other  things  being 
only  desirable  as  means  to  that  end. 


80  UTILITABIANISM. 

What  ought  to  be  required  of  this  doc- 
trine—  what  conditions  is  it  requisite  that 
the  doctrine  should  fulfil  —  to  make  good 
its  claim  to  be  believed  ? 

The  only  proof  capable  of  being  given 
that  an  object  is  visible,  is  that  people 
actually  see  it.  The  only  proof  that  a 
sound  is  audible,  is  that  people  hear  it; 
and  so  of  the  other  sources  of  our  experi- 
ence. In  like  manner,  I  apprehend,  the 
sole  evidence  it  is  possible  to  produce  that 
anything  is  desu'able,  is  that  people  do  act- 
ually desire  it.  If  the  end  which  the  utili- 
tarian doctrine  proposes  to  itself  were  not, 
in  theory  and  in  practice,  acknowledged 
to  be  an  end,  nothing  could  ever  convince 
any  person  that  it  was  so.  ^No  reason  can 
be  given  why  the  general  happiness  is  de- 
sirable except  that  each  person,  so  far  as 
he  believes  it  to  be  attainable,  desires  his 
own  happiness.^  This,  however,  being  a 
fact,  we  have  not  only  all  the  proof  which 
the  case  admits  of,  but  all  which  it  is  pos- 
sible to  require,  that  happines  is  a  good ; 
that^each  person's  happiness  is  a  good 
to  that  person,  and  the  general  happiness, 
therefore,  a  good  to  the  aggregate  of  all 


HOW  PROVED.  81 

persons.  Happiness  has  made  out  its  title 
as  one  of  the  ends  of  conduct,  and  conse- 
quently one  of  the  criteria  of  morality. 

But  it  has  not,  by  this  alone,  proved 
itself  to  be  the  sole  criterion.  To  do  that, 
it  would  seem,  by  the  same  rule,  necessary 
to  show,  not  only  that  people  desire  hap- 
piness, but  that  they  never  desire  anything 
else.  Now  it  is  palpable  that  they  do  de- 
sire things  which,  in  common  language, 
are  decidedly  distinguished  from  happi- 
ness. They  desire,  for  example,  virtue, 
and  the  absence  of  vice,  no  less  really  than 
pleasure,  and  the  absence  of  pain.  The 
desire  of  virtue  is  not  as  universal,  but  it  is 
as  authentic  a  fact,  as  the  desire  of  happi- 
ness. And  hence  the  opponents  of  the 
utilitarian  standard  deem  that  they  have  a 
right  to  infer  that  there  are  other  ends  of 
human  action  besides  happiness,  and  that 
happiness  is  not  the  standard  of  approba- 
tion and  disapprobation. 

But  does  the  utilitarian  doctrine  deny 
that  people  desire  virture,  or  maintain  that 
virtue  is  not  a  thing  to  be  desired  ?  The 
very  reverse.  It  maintains  not  only  that 
virtue  is  to  be  desired,  but  that  it  is  to  be 


82  UTILITABIANISM. 

desired  disinterestedly,  for  itself.  What- 
ever may  be  the  opinion  of  utilitarian 
moralists  as  to  the  original  conditions  by 
which  virtue  is  made  virtue  ;  however  they 
may  believe  (as  they  do)  (that  actions  and 
dispositions  are  only  virtuous  because 
they  promote  another  end  than  virtuej;  yet 
this  being  granted,  and  it  having  been  de- 
cided, from  considerations  of  this  descrip- 
tion, which  is  virtuous,  they  not  only  place 
virtue  at  the  very  head  of  the  things  which 
are  good  as  means  to  the  ultimate  end,  but 
they  also  recognize  as  a  psychological  fact 
the  possibility  of  its  being,  to  the  individ- 
ual, a  good  in  itself,  without  looking  to 
any  end  beyond  it ;  and  hold,  that  the 
mind  is  not  in  a  rio:ht  state,  not  in  a  state 
conformable  to  Utility,  not  in  the  state 
most  conducive  to  the  general  happiness, 
unless  it  does  love  virtue  in  this  manner 
—  as  a  thing  desirable  in  itself,  even 
although,  in  the  individual  instance,  it 
should  not  produce  those  other  desirable 
consequences  which  it  tends  to  produce, 
and  on  account  of  which  it  is  held  to  be 
virtue.  This  opinion  is  not,  in  the  small- 
est degree,  a  departure  from  the  Happiness 


HOW  PBOVED.  83 

principle.  The  ingredients  of  happiness 
are  very  various,  and  each  of  them  is  de- 
sirable in  itself,  and  not  merely  when  con- 
sidered as  swell  ins:  au  as-irreo-ate.  The 
principle  of  utility  does  not  mean  that  any 
given  pleasure,  as  music,  for  instance,  or 
any  given  exemption  from  pain,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, health,  are  to  be  looked  upon  as 
means  to  a  collective  something  termed 
happiness,  and  to  be  desired  on  that 
account.  They  are  desired  and  desirable 
in  and  for  themselves ;  besides  being 
means,  they  are  a  part  of  the  end.  Vir- 
tue, according  to  the  utilitarian  doctrine, 
is  not  naturally  and  originally  part  of  the 
end,  but  it  is  capable  of  becoming  so  ;  and 
in  those  who  love  it  disinterestedly  it  has 
become  so,  and  is  desired  and  cherished, 
not  as  a  means  to  happiness,  but  as  a  part 
of  their  happiness. 

To  illustrate  this  further,  we  may  remem- 
ber that  virtue  is  not  the  only  thing,  origi- 
nally a  means,  and  which  if  it  were  not  a 
means  to  anything  else,  would  be  and 
remain  indifferent,  but  which  by  association 
with  what  it  is  a  means  to,  comes  to  be  de- 
sired for  itself,  and  that  too  with  the  utmost 


84  UTILITABIAmSM, 

intensity.  What,  for  example,  shall  we 
say  of  the  love  of  money  ?  There  is  noth- 
ing originally  more  desirable  about  money 
than  about  any  heap  of  glittermg  pebbles. 
Its  worth  is  solely  that  of  the  things  which 
it  will  buy ;  the  desires  for  other  things 
than  itself,  which  it  is  a  means  of  gratify- 
ing. Yet  the  love  of  money  is  not  only 
one  of  the  strongest  moving  forces  of 
human  life,  but  money  is,  in  many  cases, 
desired  in  and  for  itself;  the  desire  to 
possess  it  is  often  stronger  than  the  desire 
to  use  it,  and  goes  on  increasing  when  all 
the  desires  which  point  to  ends  Ipeyond 
it,  to  be  compassed  by  it,  are  falling  off. 
/It  may  then  be  said  truly,  that  aiQiiey  is 
desired  not  for  the  sake  of  an  end,  but  as 
part  of  the  end.  From  being  a  means  to 
happiness,  it  has  come  to  be  itself  a  prin- 
cipal ingredient  of  J;he  individual's  con- 
ception of  happiness^  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  majority  of  the  great  objects 
of  human  life — ^_power,  for  example,  or 
fame ;  except  that  to  each  of  these  there 
is  a  certain  amount  of  immediate  pleasure 
annexed,  which  has  at  least  the  semblance 
of  being   naturally   inherent   in   them ;  ^ 


H(9W  PBOVED.  45 


thing  which  cannot  be  said  of  money 
Still,  however,  the  strongest  natural  at- 
traction, both  of  power  and  of  fame,  is  the 
immense  aid  they  give  to  the  attainment 
of  our  other  wishes ;  and  it  is  the  strong 
association  thus  generated  between  them 
and  all  our  objects  of  desire,  which  gives 
to  the  direct  desire  of  them  the  intensity 
it  often  assumes,  so  as  in  some  characters 
to  surpass  in  strength  all  other  desires. 
In  these  cases  the  means  have  become  a 
part  of  the  end,  and  a  more  important 
part  of  it  than  any  of  the  things  which 
they  are  means  to.  What  was  once  de- 
sired as  an  instrument  for  the  attainment 
of  happiness,  has  come  to  be  desired  for 
its  own  sake.^In  being  desired  for  its 
own  sake  it  is,  however,  desired  as  part 
of  happinessj  The  person  is  made,  or 
thinks  he  would  be  made,  happy  by  its 
mere  possession ;  and  is  made  unhappy 
by  failure  to  obtain  it.  The  desire  of  it 
is  not  a  different  thing  from  the  desire  of 
happiness,  any  more  than  the  love  of 
music,  or  the  desire  of  health.  They  are 
included  in  happiness.  They  are  some  of 
the  elements  of  which  the  desire  of  happi- 


86  UTILITABIANISM. 

ness  is  made  up.  Happiness  is  not  an 
abstract  idea,  but  a  concrete  whole  ;  and 
these  are  some  of  its  parts.  And  the  util- 
itarian standard  sanctions  and  approves 
their  being  so.  Life  would  be  a  poor 
thing-  very  ill  provided  with  sources  of 
happiness,  if  there  were  not  this  provision 
of  nature,  by  which  things  originally  in- 
different, but  conducive  to,  or  otherwise 
associated  with,  the  satisfaction  of  our 
primitive  desires,  become  in  themselves 
sources  of  pleasure  more  valuable  than 
the  primitive  pleasures,  both  in  perma- 
nency, in  the  space  of  human  existence 
that  they  are  capable  of  covering,  and 
even  in  intensity. 

Virtue,  according  to  the  utilitarian  con- 
ception, is  a  good  of  this  description. 
There  was  no  original  desire  of  it,  or 
motive  to  it,  save  its  conduciveness  to 
pleasure,  and  especially  to  protection 
from  pain.  But  through  the  association 
thus  formed,  it  may  be  felt  a  good  in 
itself,  and  desired  as  such  with  as  great 
intensity  as  any  other  good  ;  and  with  this 
difference  between  it  and  the  love  of  money, 
of  power,  or  of  fame,  that  all  of  these 


HOW  PBOVED.  87 

may,  and  often  do,  render  the  individual 
noxious  to  the  other  members  of  the 
society  to  which  he  belongs,  whereas  there 
is  nothing  which  makes  him  so  much  a 
blessing  to  them  as  the  cultivation  of  the 
disinterested  love  af  virtue.  (And  conse- 
quently, the  ultilitarian  standard,  while  it 
tolerates  and  approves  those  other  ac- 
quired desires,  up  to  the  point  beyond 
which  they  would  be  more  injurious  to 
the  general  happiness  than  promotive  of 
it,  enjoins  and  requires  the  cultivation  of 
the  love  of  virtue  up  to  the  greatest 
strength  possible,  as  being  above  all 
things  important  to  the  general  happi- 
nessl 

It  results  from  the  preceding  consid- 
erations, that  there  is  in  reality  nothing 
desired  except  happiness.  Whatever  is 
desired  otherwise  than  as  a  means  to  some 
end  beyond  itself,  and  ultimately  to  hap- 
piness, is  desired  as  itself  a  part  of  happi- 
ness, and  is  not  desired  for  itself  until  it 
has  become  so.  Those  who  desire  virtue 
for  its  own  sake,  desire  it  either  because 
the  consciousness  of  it  is  a  pleasure,  or 
because  the  consciousness  of  being  without 


88  UTILITARIAJSriSM. 

it  is  a  pain,  or  for  both  reasons  united  ;  as 
in  truth  the  pleasure  and  pain  seldom  exist 
separately,  but  almost  always  together,  the 
same  person  feeling  pleasure  in  the  degree 
of  virtue  attained,  and  pain  in  not  hav- 
ing attained  more.  If  one  of  these  gave 
him  no  pleasure,  and  the  other  no  pain,  he 
would  not  love  or  desire  virtue,  or  would 
desire  it  only  for  the  other  benefits  which 
it  might  produce  to  himself  or  to  persons 
w^hom  he  cared  for. 

We  have  now,  then,  an  answer  to  the 
question,  of  what  sort  of  proof  the  prin- 
ciple of  utility  is  susceptible.  If  the  opin- 
ion which  I  have  now  stated  is  psychologi- 
cally trae,  (if  human  nature  is  so  consti- 
tuted as  to  desire  nothing  which  is  not 
either  a  part  of  happiness  or  a  means  of 
happinessjjwe  can  have  no  other  proof, 
and  we  require  no  other,  that  these  are 
the  only  things  desirable.  If  so,  happiness 
is  the  sole  end  of  human  action,  and  the 
promotion  of  it  the  test  by  which  to  judge 
of  all  human  conduct ;  from  whence  it 
necessarily  follo'ws  that  it  must  be  the 
criterion  of  morality,  since  a  part  is  in- 
cluded in  the  whole. 


HOW  PROVED.  89 

And  now  to  decide  whether  this  is  really 
so  ;  whether  mankind  do  desire  nothing  for 
itself  but  that  which  is  pleasure  to  them, 
or  of  which  the  absence  is  a  pain  ;  we  have 
evidently  arrived  at  a  question  of  fact  and 
experience,  dependent,  like  all  similar 
questions,  upon  evidence.  (^It  can  only  be 
determined  by  practised  self-consciousness 
and  self-observation,  assisted  by  observa- 
tion of  othersA  I  believe  that  these  sources 
of  evidence,  impartially  consulted,  will 
declare  that  desiring  a  thing  and  finding 
it  pleasant,  aversion  to  it  and  thinking  of 
it  as  painful,  are  phenomena  entirely  in- 
separable, or  rather  two  parts  of  the  same 
phenomenon ;  in  strictness  of  language, 
two  different  modes  of  naming  the  same 
psychological  fact  ;n;hat  to  think  of  an  ob- 
ject as  desirable  (unless  for  the  sake  of  its 
consequences),  and  to  think  of  it  as  pleas- 
ant, are  one  and  the  same  thing ;  and  that 
to  desire  anything,  except  in 'proportion 
as  the  idea  of  it  is  pleasant,  is  a  physical 
and  metaphysical  impossibility. 

So  obvious  does  this  appear  to  me,  that 
I  expect  it  will  hardly  be  disputed ;  and 
the  objection  made  will  be,  not  that  de- 


90  UTILITABIANISM. 

sire  can  possibly  be  directed  to  anything 
ultimately  except  pleasure  and  exemption 
from  pain,  but  that  the  will  is  a  diflerent 
thing  from  desire ;  that  a  person  of  con- 
firmed vktue,  or  any  other  person  whose 
purposes  are  fixed,  carries  out  his  pur- 
poses without  any  thought  of  the  pleas- 
ure he  has  in  contemplating  them,  or 
expects  to  derive  from  their  fulfilment; 
and  persists  in  acting  on  them,  even 
though  these  pleasures  are  much  dimin- 
ished by  changes  in  his  character  or  de- 
cay of  his  passive  sensibilities,  or  are 
outweighed  by  the  pains  which  the  pur- 
suit of  the  purposes  may  bring  upon  him. 
All  this  I  fully  admit,  and  have  stated  it 
elsewhere,  as  positively  and  emphatically 
as  any  one.  Will,  the  active  phenom- 
enon, is  a  diiferent  thing  from  desire,  the 
state  of  passive  sensibility,  and  though 
originally  an  ofi'shoot  from  it,  may  in  time 
take  root  and  detach  itself  from  the  par- 
ent stock ;  so  much  so,  that  in  case  of  an 
habitual  purpose,  instead  of  willing  the 
thing  because  we  desire  it,  we  often  desire 
it  only  because  we  will  it.  This,  how- 
ever, is  but  an  instance  of  that  familiar 


HOW  PROVED.  91 

fact,  the  power  of  habit,  and  is  nowise 
confined  to  the  case  of  virtuous  actions. 
Many  indifi'erent  things,  which  men  origi- 
nally did  from  a  motive  of  some  sort, 
they  continue  to  do  from  habit.  Some- 
times this  is  done  unconsciously,  the  con- 
sciousness coming  only  after  the  action ; 
at  other  times  with  conscious  volition  ;  but 
volition  which  has  become  habitual, (and 
is  put  into  operation  by  the  force  of  habit, 
in  opposition  perhaps  to  the  deliberate 
preference,  as  often  happens  with  those 
who  have  contracted  habits  of  vicious  or 
hurtful  mdulgence^  Third  and  last  comes 
the  case  in  which  ^the  habitual  act  of  will 
in  the  individual  instance  is  not  in  con- 
tradiction to  the  general  intention  pre- 
vailing at  other  times,  but  in  fulfilment  of 
it ;  as  in  the  case  of  the  person  of  con- 
firmed virtue,  and  of  all  who  pursue  delib- 
erately and  consistently  any  determinate 
end.  The  distinction  between  will  and 
desire  thus  understood,  is  an  authentic 
and  highly  iipportant  psychological  fact ; 
but  the  fact  consists  solely  in  this,^hat 
will,  like  all  other  parts  of  our  constitu- 
tion, is   amenable  to  habit,  and   that  Wf* 


92  UTILITABIANISM. 

may  will  from  habit  what  we  no  longer 
desire  for  itself,  or  desire  only  because 
we  will  itK  It  is  not  the  less  true  that 
will,  in  the  beginning,  is  entirely  pro- 
duced by  desire  ;  including  in  that  term 
the  repelling  influence  of  pain^^s  well  as 
the  attractive  one  of  pleasures  Let  us 
take  into  consideration,  no  longer  the 
person  who  has  a  confirmed  will  to  do 
right,  but  him  in  whom  that  virtuous  will 
is  still  feeble,  conquerable  by  temptation, 
and  not  to  be  fully  relied  on ;  by  what 
means  can  it  be  strens^thened  ?  How  can 
the  will  to  be  virtuous,  where  it  does  not 
exist  in  sufficient  force,  be  implanted  or 
awakened?  Only  by  making  the  person 
desire  virtue ;  by  making  him  think  of  it 
in  a  pleasurable  light,  or  of  its  absence  in 
a  painful  one.  It  is  by  associating  the 
doing  right  with  pleasure,  or  the  doing 
wrong  with  pain,  or  by  eliciting  and  im- 
pressing and  bringing  home  to  the  per- 
son's experience  the  pleasure  naturally  in- 
volved in  the  one  or  the  pain  in  the  otlier, 
that  it  is  possible  to  call  forth  that  will 
to  be  virtuous,  which,  when  confirmed, 
acts  without  any  thought  of  either  pleas- 


HOW  PliOVED.  93 

ure  or  pain.  (^Yill  is  the  child  of  desire, 
and  passes  out  of  the  dominion  of  its  pai^ 
ent  only  to  come  under  that  of  habit) 
That  which  is  the  result  of  habit  affords 
no  presumption  of  being  instrinsically 
good  ;  and  there  would  be  no  reason  for 
Avishing  that  the  purpose  of  virtue  should 
become  independent  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
were  it  not  that  the  influence  of  the 
pleasurable  and  painful  associations  which 
prompt  to  virtue  is  not  sufficiently  to  be 
depended  on  for  unerring  constancy  of 
action  until  it  has  acquired  the  support  of 
habit.  (Both  in  feeling  and  in  conduct, 
habit  is  the  only  thing  which  imparts  cer- 
tainty ;  and  it  is  because  of  the  importance 
to  others  of  being  able  to  rely  absolutely 
on  one's  feelings  and  conduct,  and  to  one's 
self  of  being  able  to  rely  on  one's  own, 
that  the  will  to  do  right  ought  to  be  culti- 
vated into  this  habitual  independence.)  In 
other  words,  this  state  of  the  will  is  a  means 
to  good,  not  intrinsically  a  good  ;  and  does 
not  contradict  the  doctrine  that  nothing  is 
a  o^ood  to  human  beings  but  in  so  far  as  it 
is  either  itself  pleasurable,  or  a  means  of 
attaining  pleasure  or  averting  pain. 


94  UTILITABIANISM. 

But  if  this  doctrine  be  true,  tlie  princi- 
ple of  utility  is  proved.  Whether  it  is  so 
or  not,  must  now  be  left  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  thoughtful  reader. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ON   THE    CONNECTION   BETWEEN   JUSTICE    AND 
UTILITY. 

In  all  ages  of  speculation,  one  of  the 
strongest  obstacles  to  the  reception  of  the 
doctrine  that  Utility  or  Happiness  is  the 
criterion  of  risfht  and  wrono^,  has  been 
drawn  from  the  idea  of  Justice.  The 
powerful  sentiment,  and  apparently  clear 
perception,  which  that  word  recalls  with 
a  rapidity  and  certainty  resembling  an  in- 
stinct, have  seemed  to  the  majority  of 
thinkers  to  point  to  an  inherent  quality  in 
things ;  to  show  that  the  Just  must  have 
an  existence  in  Nature  as  something  ab- 
solute, generically  distinct  from  eveiy 
variety  of  the  Expedient,  and,  in  idea, 
opposed  to  it,  though  (as  is  commonly  ac- 
knowledged) never,  in  the  long  run,  dis- 
jointed from  it  in  fact. 

In  the  case  of  this,  as  of  our  other 
moral  sentiments,  there  is  .no    necessary 


96  UTlLITARIAmSM. 

connection  between  the  question  of  its 
origin,  and  that  of  its  binding  force. 
That  a  feeling  is  bestowed  on  us  by  j^a- 
ture,  does  not  necessarily  legitimate  all 
its  promptings.  The  feeling  of  justice 
might  be  a  peculiar  instinct,  and  might 
yet  require,  like  our  other  instincts,  to  be 
controlled  and  enlightened  by  a  higher 
reason.  If  we  have  intellectual  instincts, 
leading  us  to  judge  in  a  particular  way, 
as  well  as  animal  instincts  that  prompt  us 
to  act  in  a  particular  way,  there  is  no  ne- 
cessity that  the  former  should  be  more 
infallible  in  their  sphere  than  the  latter  in 
theirs  ;  it  may  as  well  happen  that  wrong 
judgments  are  occasionally  suggested  by 
those,  as  wrong  actions  by  these.  But 
though  it  is  one  thing  to  believe  that  we 
have  natural  feelings  of  justice,  and  an- 
other to  acknowledge  them  as  an  ultimate 
criterion  of  conduct,  these  two  opinions 
are  very  closely  connected  in  point  of 
fact.  Mankind  are  always  predisposed  to 
believe  that  any  subjective  feeling,  not 
otherwise  accountt^d  for,  is  a  revelation 
of  some  objective  reality.  Our  present 
object  is  to  determine  whether  the  reality 


BOW  CONNECTED  WITH  JUSTICE.     97 

to  which  the  feeling  of  justice  corresponds, , 
is  one  which  needs  any  such  special  reve-j 
lation  ;  whether  the  justice  or  injustice  of  .' 
an  action  is  a  thing  intrinsically  peculiar,  , 
and  distinct  from  all  its  other  qualities,  or 
only  a  combination  of  certain  of  those 
qualities,  presented  under  a  peculiar  as- 
pect. For  the  purpose  of  this  inquiry, 
it  is  practically  important  to  consider 
whether  the  feeling  itself,  of  justice  and 
injustice,  is  sui  generis  like  our  sensations 
of  color  and  taste,  or  a  derivative  feeling, 
formed  by  a  combination  of  others.  And 
this  it  is  the  more  essential  to  examine, 
as  people  are  in  general  willhig  enough  to 
allow  that  objectively  the  dictates  of  jus- 
tice coincide  with  a  part  of  the  field  of 
General  Expediency  ;  but  inasmuch  as  the 
subjective  mental  feeling  of  Justice  is 
different  from  that  which  commonl}^  at- 
taches to  simple  expediency,  and,  except 
in  extreme  cases  of  the  latter,  is  far  more 
imperative  in  its  demands,  people  find 
it  difficult  to  see,  in  Justice,  only  a  par- 
ticular kind  or  branch  of  general  utility, 
and  think  that  its  superior  binding  force 
requires  a  totally  different  origin. 


1^8  UTILITARIANISM. 

To  throw  light  upon  this  question,  it  is 
necessary  to  attempt  to  ascertain  what 
is  the  distinguishing  character  of  justice, 
or  of  injustice;  w^hat  is  the  quality,  or 
whether  there  is  any  quality,  attributed 
in  common  to  all  modes  of  conduct  desio-- 
nated  as  unjust  (for  justice,  like  many 
other  moral  attributes,  is  best  defined  by 
its  opposite),  and  distinguishing  them 
from  such  modes  of  conduct  as  are  disap- 
proved, but  without  having  that  particular 
epithet  of  disapprobation  applied  to  them. 
If,  in  everything  which  men  are  accus- 
tomed to  characterize  as  just  or  unjust, 
some  one  common  attribute  or  collection 
of  attributes  is  always  present,  we  may 
judge  whether  this  particular  attribute  or 
combination  of  attributes  would  be  capa- 
ble of  gathering  round  it  a  sentiment  of 
that  peculiar  character  and  intensity  by 
virtue  of  the  general  laws  of  our  emotional 
constitution,  or  whether  the  sentiment  is 
inexplicable,  and  requires  to  be  regarded 
as  a  special  provision  of  Nature.  If  we 
find  the  former  to  be  the  case,  we  shall, 
in  resolving  this  question,  have  resolved 
also  the  main  problem  :  if  the  latter,  we 


HOW  COXXECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.     99 

shall  have  to  seek  for  some  other  mode  of 
investio'atino;  it. 

To  liud  the  common  attributes  of  a 
variety  of  objects,  it  is  necessary  to  begin 
by  surveying  the  objects  themselves  in 
the  concrete.  Let  us  therefore  advert 
successively  to  the  various  modes  of  ac- 
tion, and  arrangements  of  human  affairs, 
which  are  classed,  by  universal  or  widely 
spread  opinion,  as  Just  or  as  Unjust. 
The  things  well  known  to  excite  the  senti- 
ments associated  with  those  names,  are 
of  a  very  multifarious  character.  I  shall 
pass  them  rapidly  in  review,  without 
studying  any  particular  arrangement. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  mostly  consid- 
ered unjust  to  deprive  any  one  of  his  per- 
sonal libert}^  his  property,  or  any  other 
thing  which  belongs  to  him  by  law.  \Here, 
therefore,  is  one  instance  of  the  applica- 
tion of  the  terms  just  and  unjust  in  a  per- 
fectly definite  sense,  namely,  that  it  is 
just  to  respect,  unjust  to  violate,  the  legal 
rig  Jits  of  any  one./' But  this  judgment 
admits  of  several  exceptions,  arising  from 
the  other  forms  in  which  the  notions  of 
justice  and  injustice  present  themselves. 


100  UTILITABIANISM. 

For  example,  the  person  who  suffers  the 
deprivation  may  (as  the  phrase  is)  have 
forfeited  the  rights  which  he  is  so  deprived 
of:  a  case  to  which  we  shall  return  pres- 
ently.    But  also, 

\Secondly,  the  legal  rights  of  which  he 
is  deprived  may  be  rights  which  ought 
not  to  have  belonged  to  him ;  in  other 
words,  the  law  which  confers  on  him  these 
rights  may  be  a  bad  law.^  When  it  is  so, 
or  when  (which  is  the  same  thing  for  our 
purpose)  it  is  supposed  to  be  so,  opinions 
will  differ  as  to  the  justice  or  injustice  of 
infringing  it.  Some  maintain  that  no  law, 
however  bad,  ought  to  be  disobeyed  by  an 
individual  citizen ;  that  his  opposition  to 
it,  if  shown  at  all,  should  only  be  shown 
in  endeavoring  to  get  it  altered  by  com- 
petent authority.  This  opinion  (which 
condemns  many  of  the  most  illustrious 
benefactors  of  mankind,  and  would  often 
protect  pernicious  institutions  against  the 
only  weapons  which,  in  the  state  of  things 
existing  at  the  time,  have  any  chance  of 
succeeding  against  them)  is  defended,  by 
those  who  hold  it,  on  grounds  of  expedi- 
ency ;    principally  on  that  of  the  impor- 


MOW  CONNECTED  WITH  JUSTICE.     101 

tance,  to  the  common  interest  of  mankind, 
of  maintaining  inviolate  the  sentiment  of 
sabmissiou  to  law.  Other  persons,  again, 
hold  the  directly  contrary  opinion,  that 
any  law,  judged  to  be  bad,  may  blamelessly 
be  disobeyed,  even  though  it  be  not  judged 
to  be  unjust,  but  only  inexpedient ;  while 
others  would  confine  the  license  of  dis- 
obedience to  the  case  of  unjust  laws ;  but 
again,  some  say,  that  all  laws  which  are 
inexpedient  are  unjust,  since  every  law 
imposes  some  restriction  on  the  natural 
liberty  of  mankind,  which  restriction  is 
an  injustice,  unless  legitimated  by  tending 
to  their  good.  V Among  these  diversities 
of  opinion,  it  seems  to  be  universally  ad- 
mitted that  there  may  be  unjust  laws,  and 
that  law,  consequently,  is  not  the  ultimate 
criterion  of  justice,  but  may  give  to  one 
person  a  benefit,  or  impose  on  another 
an  evil,  which  justice  condemns/  When, 
however,  a  law  is  thought  to  be  unjust, 
it  seems  alwa^^s  to  be  regarded  as  being 
so  in  the  same  way  in  which  a  breach  of 
law  is  unjust,  namely,  by  infringing  some- 
body's right ;  which,  as  it  cannot  in  this 
case  be  a  legal  right,  receives  a  difierent 


102  UTILITARIANISM. 

appellation,  and  is  called  a  moral  right. 
V^e  may  say,  therefore,  that  a  second  case 
of  injustice  consists  in  taking  or  withhold- 
ing from  any  person  that  to  which  he  has 
a  moral  right/ 

\  Thirdly,  it  is  universally  considered 
just  that  each  person  should  obtain  that 
(whether  good  or  evil)  which  he  deserves;/ 
and  unjust  that  he  should  obtain  a  good, 
or  be  made  to  undergo  an  evil,  which  he 
does  not  deserve.  This  is,  perhaps,  the 
clearest  and  most  emphatic  form  in  which 
the  idea  of  justice  is  conceived  by  the 
general  mind.  As  it  involves  the  notion 
of  desert,  the  question  arises,  what  consti- 
tutes desert  ?  Speaking  in  a  general  way, 
a  person  is  understood  to  deserve  good  if 
he  does  right,  evil  if  he  does  wrong  ;  and 
in  a  more  particular  sense,  to  deserve  good 
from  those  to  w^hom  he  does  or  has  done 
good,  and  evil  from  those  to  whom  he 
does  or  has  done  evil.  The  precept  of 
returning  good  for  evil  has  never  been 
resrarded  as  a  case  of  the  fulfilment  of 
justice,  but  as  one  in  which  the  claims  of 
justice  are  waived,  in  obedience  to  other 
considerations. 


BO  \Y  CONNECTED  WITH  JUSTICE.     103 

\Eaurtlily,  it  is  coufessedly  unjust  to 
hreah  faith  with  any  one  :  to  violate  an/ 
engagement,  either  express  or  implied, 
or  disappoint  expectations  raised  by  our 
own  conduct,  at  least  if  wo  have  raised 
those  expectations  knowingly  and  volun- 
tarily. Like  the  other  obligations  of  jus- 
tice already  spoken  of,  this  one  is  not 
regarded  as  absolute,  but  as  capable  of 
being  overruled  by  a  stronger  obligation 
of  justice  on  the  other  side;  or  by  such 
conduct  on  the  part  of  the  person  con- 
cerned as  is  deemed  to  absolve  us  from 
our  obligation  to  him,  and  to  constitute  a 
forfeiture  of  the  benefit  which  he  has  been 
led  to  expect. 

V Fifthly,  it  is,  by  universal  admission, 
inconsistent  with  justice  to  hQjpartial;  to 
show  favor  or  preference  to  one  person 
over  another,  in  matters  to  which  favor^ 
and  preference  do  not  properly  apply. 
Impartiality,  however,  does  not  seem  to 
be  regarded  as  a  duty  in  itself,  but  rather 
as  instrumental  to  some  other  duty;  for 
it  is  admitted  that  favor  and  preference 
are  not  always  censurable,  nnd  indeed  the 
cases  in  which  they  are-  condemned  are 


104  UTILITARIAmSM. 

rather  the  exception  than  the  rule.  A 
person  would  be  more  likely  to  be  blamed 
than  applauded  for  giving  his  family  or 
friends  no  superiority  in  good  offices  over 
strano:ers,  when  he  could  do  so  without 
violating  any  other  duty ;  and  no  one 
thinks  it  unjust  to  seek  one  person  in 
preference  to  another  as  a  friend,  connec- 
tion, or  companion.  Impartiality  where 
rights  are  concerned  is  of  course  obliga- 
tory, but  this  is  involved  in  the  more  gen- 
eral obligation  of  giving  to  every  one  his 
right.  A  tribunal,  for  example,  must  be 
impartial,  because  it  is  bound  to  award, 
without  regard  to  any  other  consideration, 
a  disputed  object  to  the  one  of  two  parties 
who  has  the  right  to  it.  There  are  other 
cases  in  which  impartiality  means,  being 
solely  influenced  by  desert ;  as  with  those 
who,  in  the  capacity  of  judges,  preceptors, 
or  parents,  administer  reward  and  punish- 
ment as  such.  There  are  cases,  again,  in 
which  it  means,  being  solely  influenced 
by  consideration  for  the  public  interest ; 
as  in  making  a  selection  among  candidates 
for  a  government  employment.  Impar- 
tiality, in  short,  as  an  obligation  of  justice, 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    105 

may  be  said  to  mean,  being  exclusively 
influenced  by  the  considerations  which  it 
is  supposed  ought  to  influence  the  par- 
ticular case  in  hand;  and  resisting  the 
solicitation  of  any  motives  which  prompt 
to  conduct  difierent  from  what  those  con- 
siderations would  dictate. 

ISTearly  allied  to  the  idea  of  impartiality 
is  that  of  equality ;  which  often  enters 
as  a  component  part  both  into  the  concep- 
tion of  justice  and  into  the  practice  of  it, 
and,  in  the  eyes  of  many  persons,  consti- 
tutes its  essence.  But  in  this,  still  more 
than  in  any  other  case,  the  notion  of  jus- 
tice varies  in  diflerent  persons,  and  always 
conforms  in  its  variations  to  their  notion 
of  utility.  Each  person  maintains  that 
equality  is  the  dictate  of  justice,  except 
where  he  thinks  that  expediency  requires 
inequality.  The  justice  of  giving  equal 
protection  to  the  rights  of  all  is  main- 
tained by  those  who  support  the  most  out- 
rageous inequality  in  the  rights  themselves. 
Even  in  slave  countries  it  is  theoretically 
admitted  that  the  rights  of  the  slave,  such 
as  they  are,  ought  to  be  as  sacred  as  those 
of  the  master ;  and  that  a  tribunal  which 


106  UTILITABIANISM, 

fails  to  enforce  them  with  equal  strictness 
is  wanting  in  justice ;  while,  at  the  same 
time,  institutions  which  leave  to  the  slave 
scarcely  any  rights  to  enforce,  are  not 
deemed  unjust,  because  they  are  not 
deemed  inexpedient.  Those  who  think 
that  utility  requires  distinction  of  rank, 
do  not  consider  it  unjust  that  riches  and 
social  privileges  should  be  unequally  dis- 
pensed ;  but  those  who  think  this  in- 
equality inxepedient,  think  it  unjust  also. 
Whoever  thinks  that  government  is  neces- 
sary, sees  no  injustice  in  as  much  inequal- 
ity as  is  constituted  by  giving  to  the 
magistrate  powers  not  granted  to  other 
people.  Even  among  those  who  hold  lev- 
elling doctrines,  there  are  as  man}^  ques- 
tions of  justice  as  there  are  differences  of 
opinion  about  expediency.  Some  Com- 
munists consider  it  unjust  that  the  produce 
of  the  labor  of  the  community  should  be 
shared  on  any  other  principle  than  that  of 
exact  equality;  others  think  it  just  that 
those  should  receive  most  whose  needs 
are  greatest ;  while  others  hold  that  those 
who  work  harder,  or  who  produce  more, 
or  whose  services  are  more  valuable  to 


BOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    107 

the  community,  may  justly  claim  a  larger 
quota  ill  the  division  of  the  produce. 
And  the  sense  of  natural  justice  may  be 
plausibly  appealed  to  in  behalf  of  every 
one  of  these  opinions. 

Among  so  many  diverse  applications  of 
the  term  Justice,  which  yet  is  not  regarded 
as  ambiguous,  it  is  a  matter  of  some 
difficulty  to  seize  the  mental  link  which 
holds  them  together,  and  on  which  the 
moral  sentiment  adhering  to  the  term  es- 
sentially depends.  Perhaps,  in  this  em- 
barrassment, some  help  may  be  derived 
from  the  history  of  the  word,  as  indicated 
by  its  etymology. 

In  most,  if  not  in  all,  languages,  the  ety- 
mology of  the  word  which  corresponds  to 
Just,  points  to  an  origin  connected  either 
with  positive  law,  or  with  that  which  was 
in  most  cases  the  primitive  form  of  law  — 
authoritative  custom.  Jusiumis  a  form  of 
jussu7n,  that  which  has  been  ordered.  Jus 
is  of  the  same  origin.  /H-acuov  comes  from 
5w?^,  of  which  the  principal  meaning,  at 
least  in  the  historical  ages  of  Greece,  was  a 
suit  at  law.  Originally,  indeed,  it  meant 
only  the  mode  or  manner  of  doing  things, 


108  UTILITABIANISM. 

but  it  early  came  to  mean  the  ])resGrihed 
manner ;  that  which  the  recognized  au- 
thorities, patriarchal,  judicial,  or  political, 
would  enforce.  Reditu  from  which  came 
right  and  righteous^  is  synonymous  with 
law.  The  original  meaning,  indeed,  of 
reclit  did  not  point  to  law,  but  to  physical 
straightness  ;  as  ivrong  and  its  Latin  equiv- 
alents meant  twisted  or  tortuous;  and  from 
this  it  is  argued  that  right  did  not  mean 
law,  but,  on  the  contrary,  law  meant  right. 
But,  however  this  may  be,  the  fact  that 
recht  and  droit  became  restricted  in  their 
\  meaning  to  positive  law,  although  much 
w^hich  is  not  required  by  law  is  equally  ne- 
cessary to  moral  straightness  or  rectitude, 
is  as  significant  of  the  original  character  of 
moral  ideas  as  if  the  derivation  had  been 
the  reverse  way.  The  courts  of  justice, 
the  administration  of  justice,  are  the  courts 
and  the  administration  of  law.  La  justice, 
in  French,  is  the  established  term  for  judi- 
cature. There  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt 
that  the  idee  mere,  the  primitive  element, 
in  the  formation  of  the  notion  of  justice, 
w^as  conformity  to  law.  It  constituted  the 
entire  idea  among  the  Hebrews,  up  to  the 


now  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    109 

birth  of  Christianity  ;  as  might  be  expected 
in  the  case  of  a  people  whose  laws  at- 
tempted to  embrace  all  subjects  on  which 
precepts  were  required,  and  who  believed 
those  laws  to  be  a  direct  emanation  from 
the  Supreme  Being.  But  other  nations, 
and  in  particular  the  Greeks  and  Eomans, 
who  knew  that  their  laws  had  been  made, 
originally,  and  still  continued  to  be  made, 
by  men,  were  not  afraid  to  admit  that 
those  men  might  make  bad  laws ;  might 
do,  by  law,  the  same  things,  and  from  the 
same  motives,  which  if  done  by  individ- 
uals, without  the  sanction  of  law,  would  be 
called  unjust.  And  hence  the  sentiment 
of  injustice  came  to  be  attached,  not  to  all 
violations  of  law,  but  only  to  violations  of 
such  laws  as  ought  to  exist,  including  such 
as  ought  to  exist  but  do  not ;  and  to  laws 
themselves,  if  supposed  to  be  contrary  to 
what  ought  to  be  law.  In  this  manner  the 
idea  of  law  and  of  its  injunctions  wjas  still 
predominant  in  the  notion  of  justice,  even 
when  the  laws  actually  in  force  ceased  to 
be  accepted  as  the  standard  of  it. 

^It  is  true  that  mankind  consider  the  idea 
of  justice  and  its  obligations  .as  applicable 


110  UTILITABIANISM. 

to  many  things  which  neither  are,  nor  is  it 
desired  that  they  should  be,  regulated  by 
law./  Nobody  desires  that  laws  should 
interfere  with  the  whole  detail  of  piivate 
life  ;  yet  every  one  allows  that  in  all  daily 
conduct,  a  person  may  and  does  show 
himself  to  be  either  just  or  unjust.  But 
even  here,  the  idea  of  the  breach  of  what 
ought  to  be  law  still  lingers  in  a  modified 
shape.  Vlt  would  always  give  us  pleasure, 
and  chime  in  with  our  feelings  of  fitness, 
that  acts  which  we  deem  unjust  should  be 
punished,  though  we  do  not  alwaj's  think 
it  expedient  that  this  should  be  done  by 
the  tribunals;  We  forego  that  gratifica- 
tion on  account  of  incidental  inconven- 
iences. We  should  be  glad  to  see  just 
conduct  enforced  and  injustice  repressed, 
even  in  the  minutest  details,  if  we  were 
not,  with  reason,  afraid  of  trusting  the 
magistrate  with  so  unlimited  an  amount 
of  power  over  individuals.  When  we 
think  that  a  person  is  bound  in  justice  to 
do  a  thing,  it  is  an  ordinary  form  of  lan- 
guage to  say,  that  he  ought  to  l)e  com- 
pelled to  do  it.  We  should  be  gratified 
to  see  the  obligation  enforced  by  anybody 


BOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    Ill 

who  had  the  power.  If  we  see  that  its 
enforcement  by  law  would  be  inexpedient, 
we  lament  the  impossibility,  we  consider 
the  impunity  given  to  injustice  as  an  evil, 
and  strive  to  make  amends  for  it  by  bring- 
ing a  strong  expression  of  our  own  and 
the  public  disapprobation  to  bear  upon  the 
offender.  Thus  the  idea  of  legal  con- 
straint is  still  the  generating  idea  of  the 
notion  of  justice,  though  undergoing  sev- 
eral transformations  before  that  notion,  as 
it  exists  in  an  advanced  state  of  society, 
becomes  complete. 

The  above  is,  I  think,  a  true  account, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  of  the  origin  and  pro- 
gressive growth  of  the  idea  of  justice. 
But  we  must  observe,  that  it  contains,  as 
yet,  nothing  to  distinguish  that  obligation 
from  moral  oblio^ation  in  o-eneral.  For  the 
truth  is,  that  the  idea  of  penal  sanction, 
which  is  the  essence  of  law,  enters  not 
only  into  the  conception  of  injustice,  but 
into  that  of  any  kind  of  wrong.  We  do 
not  call  anything  wrong,  unless  we  mean 
to  imply  that  a  person  ought  to  be  pun- 
ished in  some  way  or  other  for  doing  it ; 
if  not  by  law,  by  the  opinion  of  his  fellow- 


112  UTILITABIANISM. 

creatures ;  if  not  by  opinion,  by  the  re- 
proaches of  his  own  conscience.  'This 
seems  the  real  turning  point  of  the  dis- 
tinction between  morality  and  simple  ex- 
pediency. It  is  a  part  of  the  notion  of 
Duty  in  every  one  of  its  forms,  that  a  per- 
son may  rightfully  be  compelled  to  fulfil 
it.  Duty  is  a  thing  which  may  be  exacted 
from  a  person,  as  one  exacts  a  debt.'^  Un- 
less we  think  that  it  mi2:ht  be  exacted 
from  him,  we  do  not  call  it  his  duty. 
Reasons  of  prudence,  or  the  interest  of 
other  people,  may  militate  against  actu- 
ally exacting  it ;  but  the  person  himself, 
it  is  clearly  understood,  would  not  be 
entitled  to  complain.  There  are  other 
things,  on  the  contrary,  which  we  wish 
that  people  should  do,  which  we  like  or 
admire  them  for  doing,  perhaps  dislike  or 
despise  them  for  not  doing,  but  yet  admit 
that  they  are  not  bound  to  do  ;  it  is  not  a 
case  of  moral  obligation  ;  we  do  not  bhime 
them,  that  is,  we  do  not  think  that  they 
are  proper  objects  of  punishment.  How 
we  come  by  these  ideas  of  deserving  and 
not  deserving  punishment,  will  appear, 
perhaps,  in  the  sequel ;  but  I  think  there 


MOW  CONNJECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    113 

is  no  doubt  that  this  distinction  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  the  notions  of  right  and  wrong ; 
that  we  call  any  conduct  wrong,  or  employ 
instead  some  other  term  of  dislike  or  dis- 
paragement, according  as  we  think  that 
the  person  ought,  or  ought  not,  to  be  pun- 
ished for  it ;  and  we  say  that  it  would  be 
right  to  do  so  and  so,  or  merely  that  it 
would  be  desirable  or  laudable,  according 
as  we  would  wish  to  see  the  person  whom 
it  concerns  compelled,  or  only  persuaded 
and  exhorted,  to  act  in  that  manner.* 

This,  therefore,  being  the  characteris- 
tic difference  which  marks  off,  not  justice, 
but  morality  in  general,  from  the  remain- 
ing provinces  of  Expediency  and  Worthi- 
ness, the  character  is  still  to  be  sought 
which  distinguishes  justice  from  other 
branches  of  morality.  Now  it  is  known 
that  ethical  writers  divide  moral  duties 
into  two  classes,  denoted  by  the  ill-chosen 
expressions,  duties  of  perfect  and  of  im- 

*  See  this  point  enforced  and  illustrated  by  Pro- 
fessor Bain,  in  an  admirable  chapter  (entitled 
"The  Ethical  Emotions,  or  the  Moral  Sense") 
of  the  second  of  the  two  treatises  composing  his 
elaborate  and  profound  work  on  the  Mind. 
8 


114  UTILITABIANI8M. 

perfect  obligation  ;  the  latter  being  those 
in  which,  though  the  act  is  obligatory,  the 
particular  occasions  of  performing  it  are 
left  to  our  choice  ;  as  in  the  case  of  charity 
or  beneficence,  which  we  are  indeed  bound 
to  practise,  but  Hot  towards  any , definite 
person,  nor  at  any  prescribed  time.  In  the 
more  precise  language  of  philosophic  ju- 
rists, duties  of  perfect  obligation  are  those 
duties  in  virtue  of  which  a  correlative  right 
resides  in  some  person  or  persons  ;  duties 
of  imperfect  obligation  are  those  moral 
obligations  which  do  not  give  birth  to  any 
right.  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  this 
distinction  exactly  coincides  with  that 
which  exists  between  justice  and  the  other 
obligations  of  morality.  In  our  survey 
of  the  various  popular  acceptations  of 
justice,  the  term  appeared  generally  to 
involve  the  idea  of  a  personal  right,  —  a 
claim  on  the  part  of  one  or  more  individ- 
uals, like  that  which  the  law  gives  when 
it  confers  a  proprietary  or  other  legal 
right.  Whether  the  injustice  consists  in 
depriving  a  person  of  a  possession,  or  in 
breaking  faith  with  him,  or  in  treating 
him   worse    than   he    deserves,  or    worse 


HOW  CONNECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    115 

than  other  people  who  have  no  greater 
claims,  in  each  case  the  supposition  im- 
plies two  things, — a  wrong  done,  and 
some  assignable  person  who  is  wronged. 
Injustice  may  also  be  done  by  treating  a 
person  better  than  others ;  but  the  wrong 
in  this  case  is  to  his  competitors,  who  are 
also  assignable  persons.  It  seems  to  me 
that  this  feature  in  the  case  —  a  right  in 
some  person,  correlative  to  the  moral  ob- 
ligation —  constitutes  the  specific  difier- 
ence  between  justice,  and  generosity  or» 
beneficence.  I  Justice  implies  something  \ 
which  it  is  not  only  right  to  do,  and  wrong 
not  to  do,  but  which  some  individual  per- 
son €an  claim  from  us  as  his  moral  right. 
No  one  has  amoral  right  to  our  generosity  ( 
or  beneficence,  because  we  are  not  morally  \ 
bound  to  practise  those  virtues  towards  j 
any  given  individual.-^  And  it  will  be 
found,  with  respect  to  this  as  with  respect 
to  every  correct  definition,  that  the  in- 
stances which  seem  to  conflict  with  it  are 
those  which  most  confirm  it.  For  if  a 
moralist  attempts,  as  some  have  done,  to 
make  out  that  mankind  generally,  though 
not  any  given  individual,  have  a  right  to 


116  UTILITAJRIANISM. 

all  the  good  we  can  do  to  them,  he  at  once, 
by  that  thesis,  includes  generosity  and 
beneficence  within  the  category  of  justice. 
He  is  obliged  to  say,  that  our  utmost  ex- 
ertions are  due  to  our  fellow-creatures, 
thus  assimilating  them  to  a  debt ;  or  that 
nothing  less  can  be  a  sufficient  return  for 
what  society  does  for  us,  thus  classing 
the  case  as  one  of  gratitude ;  both  of 
which  are  acknowledged  cases  of  justice. 
Wherever  there  is  a  rio'ht  the  case  is  one 
of  justice,  and  not  of  the  virtue  of  benefi- 
cence ;  and  whoever  does  not  place  the 
distinction  between  justice  and  morality 
in  general  where  we  have  now  placed  it, 
will  be  found  to  make  no  distinction  be- 
tween them  at  all,  but  to  merge  all  moral- 
ity in  justice. 

Having  thus  endeavored  to  determine 
the  distinctive  elements  which  enter  into 
the  composition  of  the  idea  of  justice,  we 
are  ready  to  enter  on  the  inquiry,  whether 
the  feeling,  which  accompanies  the  idea, 
is  attached  to  it  by  a  special  dispensation 
of  nature,  or  whether  it  could  have  grown 
up,  by  any  known  laws,  out  of  the  idea 
itself;    and  in  particular,  whether  it  can 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    117 

have  originated  in  considerations  of  gen- 
eral expediency. 

I  conceive  that  the  sentiment  itself  does 
not  arise  from  anything  which  would  com- 
monly, or  correctly,  be  termed  an  idea  of 
expediency ;  but  that,  though  the  senti- 
ment does  not,  whatever  is  moral  in  it 
does. 

We  have  seen  that  the  two  essential 
ingredients  in  the  sentiment  of  justice 
are,  the  desire  to  punish  a  person  who 
has  done  harm,  and  the  knowledge  or  be- 
lief that  there  is  some  definite  individual 
or  individuals  to  whom  harm  has  been 
done. 

V  Now  it  appears  to  me,  that  the  desire 
to  punish  a  person  who  has  done  harm  to 
some  individual,  is  a  spontaneous  out- 
growth from  two  sentiments,  both  in  the 
highest  degree  natural,  and  which  either 
are  or  resemble  instincts,  — the  impulse  of 
self-defence,  and  the  feeling  of  sympathy/ 
.  It  is  natural  to  resent,  and  to  repel  or 
retaliate,  any  harm  done  or  attempted 
ao^ainst  ourselves,  or  ao^ainst  those  with 
whom  we  sympathize.  The  origin  of  this 
sentiment  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  dis- 


118  UTILITABIANISM, 

CUSS.  Whether  it  be  an  iostinct  or  a 
result  of  intelligence,  it  is,  we  know,  com- 
mon to  all  animal  nature ;  for  every  ani- 
mal tries  to  hurt  those  who  have  hurt,  or 
who  it  thinks  are  about  to  hurt,  itself  or 
its  young.  Human  beings,  on  this  point, 
only  diifer  from  other  animals  in  two  par- 
ticulars. First,  in  being  capable  of  sym- 
pathizing, not  solely  with  their  offspring, 
or,  like  some  of  the  more  noble  animals, 
with  some  superior  animal  who  is  kind  to 
them,  but  with  all  human,  and  even  with 
all  sentient,  beings.  Secondly,  in  hav- 
ing a  more  developed  intelligence,  which 
gives  a  wider  range  to  the  whole  of  their 
sentiments,  whether  self-regarding  or  sym- 
pathetic. '^  By  virtue  of  his  superior  intel- 
ligence, even  apart  from  his  superior  range 
of  sympathy,  a  human  being  is  capable 
of  apprehending  a  community  of  interest 
between  himself  and  the  human  society  of 
which  he  forms  a  part,  such  that  any  con- 
duct which  threatens  the  security  of  the 
society  generally,  is  threatening  to  his 
own,  and  calls  forth  his  instinct  (if  instinct 
it  be)  of  self-defence.  ^  The  same  supe- 
riority of  intelligence,  joined  to  the  power 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    119 

of  sympathizing  Avith  human  beings  gen- 
erally, enables  him  to  attach  himself  to 
the  collective  idea  of  his  tribe,  his  country, 
or  mankind,  in  such  a  manner  that  any 
act  hurtful  to  them  rouses  his  instinct  of 
sympathy,  and  urges  him  to  resistance. 

The  sentiment  of  justice,  in  that  one  of 
its'  elements,  which  consists  of  the  desire 
to  punish,  is  thus,  I  conceive,  the  natural 
feeling  of  retaliation  or  vengeance,  ren- 
dered by  intellect  and  sympathy  appli- 
cable to  those  injuries,  that  is,  to  those 
hurts  which  wound  us  through,  or  in 
common  with,  society  at  large.  This  sen- 
timent, in  itself,  has  nothing  moral  in  it ; 
what  is  moral  is,  the  exclusive  subordina- 
tion of  it  to  the  social  sympathies,  so  as 
to  wait  on  and  obey  their  call.  For  the 
natural  feeling  tends  to  make  us  resent  in- 
discriminately whatever  any  one  does  that 
is  disagreeable  to  us  ;  but  when  moralized 
by  the  social  feeling,  it  only  acts  in  the  di- 
rections conformable  to  the  general  good  ; 
\  just  persons  resenting  a  hurt  to  society, 
though  not  otherwise  a  hurt  to  themselves, 
and  not  resenting  a  hurt  to  themselves, 
however  painful,  unless  it  be  of  the  kind 


120  UTILITABIANI8M. 

which  society  has  a  common  interest  with 
them  in  the  repression  of.  / ' 

It  is  no  objection  against  this  doctrine 
to  say,  that  when  we  feel  our  sentiment  of 
justice  outraged,  we  are  not  thinking  of 
society  at  large,  or  of  any  collective  inter- 
est, but  only  of  the  individual  case.  It  is 
common  enough,  certainly,  though  the  re- 
verse of  commendable,  to  feel  resentment 
merely  because  we  have  suflered  pain; 
but  a  person  whose  resentment  is  really  a 
moral  feeling,  that  is,  who  considers 
whether  an  act  is  blamable  before  he  al- 
lows himself  to  resent  it  —  such  a  person, 
though  he  may  not  say  expressly  to  him- 
self that  he  is  standing  up  for  the  interest 
of  society,  certainly  does  feel  that  he  is 
asserting  a  rule  which  is  for  the  benefit  of 
others  as  well  as  for  his  own.  If  he  is  not 
feelins:  this,  —  if  he  is  re2:ardino:  the  act 
solely  as  it  aJffects  him  individually,  —  he 
is  not  consciously  just ;  he  is  not  concern- 
ing himself  about  the  justice  of  his  ac- 
tions. This  is  admitted  even  by  anti-utili- 
tarian moralists.  When  Kant  (as  before 
remarked)  propounds  as  the  fundamental 
principle  of  morals,  "  So  act,  that  thy  rule 


HOW  CONXECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    121 

of  conduct   might    be  adopted  as    a   law 
by  all  rational    beings,"   he  virtually  ac- 
knowledges that  the   interest  of  mankind 
collectively,  or  at  least  of  mankind  indis- 
criminately, must  be  in  the  mind  of  the 
agent    when  conscientiously    deciding    on 
the  morality  of  the   act.      Otherwise,   he 
uses  words    without  a  meaning ;  for,  that 
Va  rule  even  of  utter  selfishness  could  not 
possibly  be  adopted  by  all  rational  beings 
—  that  there  is  any   insuperable    obstacle 
in  the  nature    of  things  to  its  adoptjon— / 
cannot  be  even  plausibly  maintainecf.      To^ 
give  any  meaning  to  Kant's  principle,  the\ 
sense  put  upon  it  must  be,  that  we  ought 
to  shape  our  conduct  by  a  rule  which   all 
rational  beings  might  adopt  with  benefit  to 
their  collective  interest. 

To  recapitulate  :  the  idea  of  justice  sup- 
-  poses  two  things ;  a  rule  of  conduct,  and 
''  a  sentiment  which  sanctions  the  rule. 
The  first  must  be  supposed  common  to 
all  mankind,  and  intended  for  their  good. 
The  other  (the  sentiment)  is  a  desire  that 
punishment  may  be  sufiered  by  those  who 
infringe  the  rule.  There  is  involved,  in 
addition,  the  conception  of  some  definite 


122  utilitarianism:. 

person  wlio  suffers  by  the  infringement ; 
whose  rights  (to  use  the  expression  appro- 
priated to  the  case)  are  violated  by  it. 
And  the  sentiment  of  justice  appears  to 
me  to  be,  the  animal  desire  to  repel  or 
retaliate  a  hurt  or  damage  to  one's  self,  or 
to  those  with  whom  one  sympathizes, 
widened  so  as  to  include  all  persons,  by 
the  human  capacity  of  enlarged  sympathy, 
and  the  human  conception  of  intelligent 
self-interest.  From  the  latter  elements, 
the  feeling  derives  its  morality ;  from  the 
former,  its  peculiar  impressiveness,  and 
energy  of  self-assertion. 

I  have  throughout  treated  the  idea  of 
a  right  residing  in  the  injured  person,  and 
violated  by  the  injury,  not  as  a  separate  i 
element  in  the  composition  of  the  idea  and 
sentiment,   but  as    one   of  the   forms    in 
which     the    other    two    elements    clothe , 
themselves.     These  elements  are,  a  hurt  ' 
to  some  assignable  person  or  persons  on 
the  one  hand,  and  a  demand  for  punish- 
ment  on  the  other.     An  examination  of 
our  own  minds,  I  think,  will  show,  that 
these  two  things  include  all  that  we  mean 
when  we  speak  of  violation   of  a  right. 


HOW   COXXECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    123 

Wheu  we  call  an^'thing  a  person's  right, 
we  mean  that  he  has  a  valid  chiini  on  so- 
ciety to  protect  him  in  the  possession  of  it, 
either  by  the  force  of  law,  or  by  that  of 
education  and  opinion.  If  he  has  what  we 
consider  a  sufficient  claim,  on  whatever 
account,  to  have  something  guaranteed  to 
him  by  society,  we  say  he  has  a  right  to 
it.  If  we  desire  to  prove  that  anything 
does  not  belong  to  him  by  right,  we  think 
this  done  as  soon  as  it  is  admitted  that 
society  ought  not  to  take  measures  for 
securing  it  to  him,  but  should  leave  it  to 
chance,  or  to  his  own  exertions.  Thus,  a 
person  is  said  to  have  a  right  to  what  he 
can  earn  in  fair  professional  competition  ; 
because  society  ought  not  to  allow  any 
other  person  to  hinder  him  from  endeav- 
oring to  earn  in  that  manner  as  much  as 
he  can.  But  he  has  not  a  ris^ht  to  three 
hundred  a  year,  though  he  may  happen  to 
be  earning  it;  because  society  is  not 
called  on  to  provide  that  he  shall  earn 
that  sum.  On  the  contrary,  if  he  owns 
ten  thousand  pounds  three  per  cent  stock 
he  has  a  right  to  three  hundred  a  year ; 
because  society  has  come  Under  an  obliga- 


124  UTILITARIANISM. 

tion  to  provide  him  with  an  income  of 
that  amomit. 

\  To  have  a  right,  then,  is,  I  conceive, 
to  have  something  which  society  ought  to 
defend  me  in  the  possession  of.  If  the 
objector  goes  on  to  ask  why  it  ought,  I 
can  give  him  no  other  reason  than  gen- 
eral utility/  If  that  expression  does  not 
seem  to  convey  a  sufficient  feeling  of 
the  strength  of  the  obligation,  nor  to  ac- 
count for  the  peculiar  energy  of  the  feel- 
mgs,  it  is  because  there  goes  to  the  com- 
position of  the  sentiment,  not  a  rational 
only  but  also  an  animal  element,  the 
thirst  for  retaliation ;  and  this  thirst  de- 
rives its  intensity,  as  well  as  its  moral 
justification,  from  the  extraordinarily  im- 
portant and  impressive  kind  of  utility 
which  is  concerned.  The  interest  in- 
volved is  that  of  security,  to  every  one's 
feelings  the  most  vital  of  all  interests. 
Nearly  all  other  earthly  benefits  are 
needed  by  one  person,  not  needed  by 
another  ;  and  many  of  them  can,  if  neces- 
sary, be  cheerfully  foregone,  or  replaced 
by  something  else  ;  ^but  security  no  human 
being  can  possibly  do  without ;  on  it  we 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    125 

depend  for  all  our  immunity  from  evil, 
and  for  the  ^hole  value  of  all  and  every 
good,  beyond  the  passing  moment ;  since 
nothinoj  but  the  2:ratification  of  the  instant 
could  be  of  any  worth  to  us,  if  we  could 
be  deprived  of  everything  the  next  instant 
by  whoever  was  momentarily  stronger 
than  ourselves.  Now  this  most  indispen- 
sable of  all  necessaries,  after  physical 
nutriment,  cannot  be  had,  unless  the 
machinery  for  providing  it  is  kept  unin- 
termittedly  in  active  play.  Our  notion, 
therefore,  of  the  claim  we  have  on  our 
fellow-creatures  to  join  in  making  safe  for 
us  the  very  ground-work  of  our  existence, 
D^athers  feeiino^s  round  it  so  much  more  in- 
tense  than  those  concerned  in  any  of  the 
more  common  cases  of  utility,  that  the 
difference  in  degree  (aa  is  often  the  case 
in  psychology)  becomes  a  real  difference 
in  kind.  The  claim  assumes  that  char- 
acter of  absoluteness,  that  apparent  in- 
finity, and  incommensurability  with  all 
other  considerations,  which  constitute  the 
distinction  1)etween  the  feelino;  of  rio'ht 
and  wrong  and  that  of  ordinary  expedi- 
ency  and    inexpediency.       The    feelings 


126  UTILITABIANISM. 

concerned  are  so  powerful,  and  we  count 
so  positively  on  finding  a  responsive  feel- 
ing iu  others  (all  being  alike  interested), 
that  ought  and  should  grow  into  must, 
and  recognized  indispensability  becomes 
a  moral  necessity,  analogous  to  physical, 
and  often  not  inferior  to  it  in  binding 
force. 

-  If  the  preceding  analysis,  or  something 
resembling  it,  be  not  the  correct  account 
of  the  notion  of  justice  ;  if  justice  be 
totally  independent  of  utility,  and  be  a 
standard  j3er  se,  w^hich  the  mind  can  recog- 
nize by  simple  introspection  of  itself,  it 
is  hard  to  understand  why  that  internal 
oracle  is  so  ambiguous,  and  why  so  many 
things  appear  either  just  or  unjust,  accord- 
ing to  the  light  in  which  they  are  regarded. 
We  are  continually  informed  that  Util- 
ity is  an  uncertain  standard,  which  every 
diflferent  person  interprets  differentl}^,  and 
that  there  is  no  safety  but  in  the  immu- 
table, ineffaceable,  and  unmistak^ible  dic- 
tates of  Justice,  which  carry  their  evi- 
dence in  themselves,  and  are  independent 
of  the  fluctuations  of  opinion.  One  w^ould 
suppose    from    this   that  on  questions  of 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    127 

justice  there  could  be  no  controversy ; 
that  if  we  take  that  for  our  rule,  its  appli- 
cation to  any  given  case  could  leave  us  in 
as  little  doubt  as  a  mathematical  demon- 
stration. So  far  is  this  from  being  the  fact, 
that  there  is  as  much  difference  of  opin- 
ion, and  as  fierce  discussion,  about  what 
is  just,  as  about  what  is  useful  to  society. 
Not  only  have  different  nations  and  indi- 
viduals different  notions  of  justice,  but  in 
the  mind  of  one  and  the  same  individual, 
justice  is  not  some  one  rule,  principle,  or 
maxim,  but  many,  which  do  not  alwaj^s 
coincide  in  their  dictates,  and  in  choosing 
between  w^hich,  he  is  guided  either  by 
some  extraneous  standard,  or  by  his  own 
personal  predilections. 

For  instance,  there  are  some  who  say, 
that  it  is  unjust  to  punish  any  one  for  the 
sake  of  example  to  others ;  that  punish- 
ment is  just  only  when  intended  for  the 
good  of  the  sufferer  himself.  Others 
maintain  the  extreme  reverse,  contending 
that  to  punish  persons  who  have  attained 
years  of  discretion,  for  their  own  benefit, 
is  despotism  and  injustice,  since  if  the 
matter  at  issue  is  solely  their  o^n  good, 


128  UTILITARIANISM. 

no  one  has  a  right  to  control  their  own 
judgment  of  it ;  but  that  they  may  justly 
be  punished  to  prevent  evil  to  others,  this 
being  an  exercise  of  the  legitimate  right 
of  self-defence.  Mr.  Owen,  again,  affirms 
that  it  is  unjust  to  punish  at  all ;  for  the 
criminal  did  not  make  his  own  character  ; 
his  education  and  the  circumstances  which 
surround  him  have  made  him  a  criminal,  and 
for  these  he  is  not  responsible.  All  these 
opinions  are  extremely  plausible ;  and  so 
long  as  the  question  is  argued  as  one  of  jus- 
tice simply,  without  going  down  to  the  prin- 
ciples which  lie  under  justice,  and  are  the 
source  of  its  authority,  I  am  unable  to  see 
how  any  of  these  reasoners  can  be  refated. 
For,  in  truth,  every  one  of  the  three 
builds  upon  rules  of  justice  confessedly 
true.  The  first  appeals  to  the  acknowl- 
edged injustice  of  singling  out  an  individ- 
ual, and  making  him  a  sacrifice,  without 
his  consent,  for  other  people's  benefit. 
The  second  relies  on  the  acknowledged 
justice  of  self-defence,  and  the  admitted 
injustice  of  forcing  one  person  to  conform 
to  another's  notions  of  what  constitutes 
his  good.     The  Owenite  invokes  the  ad- 


HOW  CONNECTED  WITH  JUSTICE.    129 

mitted  principle,  that  it  is  unjust  to  pun- 
ish   any   one    for   what   he    cannot   help. 
Each  is  triumphant  so  long  as  he  is  not 
compelled  to  take  into  consideration  any 
other  maxims  of  justice  than  the  one  he 
has  selected ;  but  as  soon  as  their  several 
maxims  are  brought  face  to  face,  each  dis- 
putant seems  to  have  exactly  as  much  to 
say  for  himself  as  the  others.     No  one  of 
them  can    carry  out   his   own   notion    of 
justice   without   trampling   upon  another 
equally  binding.     These  are    difficulties ; 
they  have  always  been  felt  to  be  such ; 
and  many  devices  have  been  invented  to 
turn,  rather  than  to  overcome  them.     As 
a  refuge  from  the  last  of  the  three,  men 
imagined  what  they  called  the  freedom  of 
the    will ;    fancying   that  they  could   not 
justify  punishing  a  man  whose  will  is  in 
a  thoroughly  hateful  state,    unless    it  be 
supposed  to   have   come   into   that   state 
through  no  influence   of  anterior  circum- 
stances.    To  escape  from  the  other  diffi- 
culties, a  favorite    contrivance   has    been 
the   fiction   of    a    contract,    whereby,    at 
some  unknown  period,  all  the  members  of 
society  engaged   to   obey  the    laws,    and 

9 


130  UTILITABIANISM. 

coDsented  to  be  punished  for  any  disobe- 
dience to  them ;  thereby  giving  to  their 
le£:islators  the  rio'ht,  which  it  is  assumed 
they  would  not  otherwise  have  had,  of 
punishing  them,  either  for  their  own  good 
or  for  that  of  society.  This  happy 
thought  was  considered  to  get  rid  of 
the  whole  difficulty,  and  to  legitimate 
the  infliction  of  punishment,  in  virtue  of 
another  received  maxim  of  justice,  volenti 
non  Jit  injuria ;  that  is  not  unjust  which 
is  done  with  the  consent  of  the  person 
who  is  supposed  to  be  hurt  by  it.  I  need 
hardly  remark,  that  even  if  the  consent 
were  not  a  mere  fiction,  this  maxim  is  not 
superior  in  authority  to  the  others  which 
it  is  brought  in  to  supersede.  It  is,  on 
the  contrary,  an  instructive  specimen  of 
the  loose  and  irregular  manner  in  which 
supposed  principles  of  justice  grow  up. 
This  particular  one  evidently  came  into 
use  as  a  help  to  the  coarse  exigencies  of 
courts  of  hiw,  which  are  sometimes  obliged 
to  be  content  with  very  uncertain  pre- 
sumptions, on  account  of  the  greater  evils 
which  would  often  arise  from  any  at- 
tempt on  their   part   to  cut  finer.      But 


HOW  COXNECTEB   WITH  JUSTICE.    131 

even  courts  of  law  are  not  able  to  adhere 
consistently  to  the  maxhu,  for  they  allow 
voluntary  engagements  to  be  set  aside  on 
the  ground  of  fraud,  and  sometimes  on 
that  of  mere  mistake  or  misinformation. 
Again,  when  the  legitimacy  of  inflict- 
ing punishment  is  admitted,  how  many 
conflicting  conceptions  of  justice  come  to 
light  in  discussing  the  proper  apportion- 
ment of  punishment  to  offences.  No  rule 
on  this  subject  recommends  itself  so 
strongly  to  the  primitive  and  spontaneous 
sentiment  of  justice,  as  the  lex  talionis, 
an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth. 
Though  this  principle  of  the  Jewish  and 
of  the  Mahomedan  law  has  been  generally 
abandoned  in  Europe  as  a  practical  maxim, 
there  is,  I  suspect,  in  most  minds,  a 
secret  hankering  after  it ;  and  when  retri- 
bution accidentally  falls  on  an  offender  in 
that  precise  shape,  the  general  feeling  of 
satisfaction  evinced,  bears  witness  how 
natural  is  the  sentiment  to  which  this 
repayment  in  kind  is  acceptable.  With 
many  the  test  of  justice  in  penal  infliction 
is  that  the  punishment  should  be  propor- 
tioned   to  the   offence ;    meaning   that  it 


132  UTILITABIANISM. 

should  be  exactly  measured  by  the  moral 
guilt  of  the  culprit  (whatever  be  their 
standard  for  measuring  moral  guilt)  :  the 
consideration,  what  amount  of  punish- 
ment is  necessary  to  deter  from  the  offence, 
having  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 
justice,  in  their  estimation :  while  there 
are  others  to  whom  that  consideration  is 
all  in  all ;  who  maintain  that  it  is  not  just, 
at  least  for  man,  to  inflict  on  a  fellow- 
creature,  whatever  may  be  his  offences, 
any  amount  of  suffering  beyond  the  least 
that  will  suffice  to  prevent  him  from 
repeating,  and  others  from  imitating,  his 
misconduct. 

To  take  another  example  from  a  sub- 
ject already  once  referred  to.  In  a 
co-operative  industrial  association,  is  it 
just  or  not  that  talent  or  skill  should  give 
a  title  to  superior  remuneration  ?  On  the 
negative  side  of  the  question  it  is  argued, 
that  whoever  does  the  best  he  can, 
deserves  equally  well,  and  ought  not  in 
justice  to  be  put  in  a  position  of  inferior- 
ity for  no  fault  of  his  own  ;  that  superior 
abilities  have  already  advantages  more 
than    enough,    in    the     admiration    they 


HOW  CONNECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    133 

excite,  the  personal  influence  they  com- 
mand, and  the  internal  sources  of  satis- 
faction attendino^  them,  without  adding:  to 
these  a  superior  share  of  the  world's 
goods ;  and  that  society  is  bound  in  jus- 
tice rather  to  make  compensation  to  the 
less  favored,  for  this  unmerited  inequality 
of  advantages,  than  to  aggravate  it.  On 
the  contrary  side  it  is  contended,  that 
society  receives  more  from  the  more  effi- 
cient laborer  ;  that  his  services  being  more 
useful,  society  owes  him  a  larger  return 
for  them  ;  that  a  greater  share  of  the  joint 
result  is  actually  his  work,  and  not  to 
allow  his  claim  to  it  is  a  kind  of  robbery ; 
that  if  he  is  only  to  receive  as  much  as 
others,  he  can  only  be  justly  required  to 
produce  as  much,  and  to  give  a  smaller 
amount  of  time  and  exertion,  proportioned 
to  his  superior  efficiency.  Who  shall 
decide  between  these  appeals  to  conflicting 
principles  of  justice  ?  Justice  has  in  this 
case  two  sides  to  it,  which  it  is  impossible 
to  bring  into  harmony,  and  the  two  dispu- 
tants have  chosen  opposite  sides ;  the  one 
looks  to  what  it  is  just  that  the  individual 
should  receive,  the  other  to  what  it  is  just 


134  UTILITABIANISM. 

that  the  community  should  give.     Each, 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  is  unanswer- 
able;  and  any  choice  between  them,  on 
grounds    of   justice,    must    be    perfectly  i 
arbitrary.     Social  utility  alone  can  decide  / 
the  preference. 

How  many,  again,  and  how  irreconcil- 
able, are  the  standards  of  justice  to  which 
reference  is  made  in  discussing  the  repar- 
tition of  taxation.  One  opinion  is,  that 
payment  to  the  state  should  be  in  nu- 
merical proportion  to  pecuniary  means. 
Others  think  that  justice  dictates  what 
they  term  graduated  taxation ;  taking  a 
higher  percentage  from  those  who  have 
more  to  spare.  In  point  of  natural  jus- 
tice a  strong  case  might  be  made  for  dis- 
regarding means  altogether,  and  taking 
the  same  absolute  sum  (whenever  it  could 
be  got)  from  every  one  :  as  the  subscrib- 
ers to  a  mess,  or  to  a  club,  all  pay  the 
same  sum  for  the  same  privileges,  whether 
they  can  all  equally  afford  it  or  not. 
Since  the  protection  (it  might  be  said) 
of  law  and  government  is  afforded  to,  and 
is  equally  required  by  all,  there  is  no  in- 
justice in  making  all  buy  it  at  the   same 


HOW  CONKECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    135 

price.  It  is  reckoned  justice,  not  injus- 
tice, that  a  dealer  should  charge  to  all 
customers  the  same  price  for  the  same 
article,  not  a  price  varying  according  to 
their  means  of  payment.  This  doctrine, 
as  applied  to  taxation,  finds  no  advocates, 
because  it  conflicts  strongly  with  men's 
feelings  of  humanity  and  perceptions  of 
social  expediency ;  but  the  principle  of 
justice  which  it  invokes  is  as  true  and  as 
binding  as  those  which  can  be  appealed 
to  against  it.  Accordingly,  it  exerts  a 
tacit  influence  on  the  line  of  defence  em- 
ployed for  other  modes  of  assessing  taxa- 
tion. People  feel  obliged  to  argue  that 
the  state  does  more  for  the  rich  than  for 
the  poor,  as  a  justification  for  its  taking- 
more  from  them ;  though  this  is  in  reality 
not  true,  for  the  rich  would  be  fiir  better 
able  to  protect  themselves,  in  the  absence 
of  law  or  government,  than  the  poor,  and 
indeed  would  probably  be  successful  in 
converting  the  poor  into  their  slaves. 
Others,  again,  so  far  defer  to  the  same 
conception  of  justice,  as  to  maintain  that 
all  should  pay  an  equal  capitation  tax  for 
the  protection  of  their  persons  (these  being 


136  UTILITABIANISM. 

of  equal  value  to  all) ,  and  an  unequal  tax 
for  the  protection  of  their  property,  which 
is  unequal.  To  this  others  reply,  that 
the  all  of  one  man  is  as  valuable  to  him  as 
the  all  of  another.  From  these  confusions 
there  is  no  other  mode  of  extrication  than 
the  utilitarian. 

Is,  then,  the  difference  between  the  Just 
and  the  Expedient  a  merely  imaginary 
distinction?  Have  mankind  been  under 
a  delusion  in  thinking  that  justice  is  a 
more  sacred  thing  than  policy,  and  that 
the  latter  ought  only  to  be  listened  to  after 
the  former  has  been  satisfied?  By  no 
means.  The  exposition  we  have  given  of 
the  nature  and  origin  of  the  sentiment, 
recognizes  a  real  distinction ;  and  no  one 
of  those  who  profess  the  most  sublime 
contempt  for  the  consequences  of  actions 
as  an  element  in  their  morality,  attaches 
more  importance  to  the  distinction  than 
I  do.  While  I  dispute  the  pretensions  of 
any  theory  which  sets  up  an  imaginary 
standard  of  justice  not  grounded  on  util- 
ity\  I  account  the  justice  which  is  grounded 
on  utility  to  be  the  chief  part,  and  incom- 


HOW  CONNECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    137 

parably  the  most  sacred  and  binding  part 
of  all  moralityf  Justice  is  a  name  for  cer- 
tain classes  of  moral  rules,  which  concern 
the  essentials  of  human  well-being  more 
nearly,  and  are  therefore  of  more  absolute 
obligation  than  any  other  rules  for  the 
guidance  of  life  ;  and  the  notion  which  Tve 
have  found  to  be  of  the  essence  of  the  idea 
of  justice,  that  of  a  right  residing  in  an 
individual,  implies  and  testifies  to  this 
more  binding  obligation. 

The  moral  rules  which  forbid  mankind 
to  hurt  one  another  (in  which  we  must 
never  forget  to  include  wrongful  inter- 
ference with  each  other's  freedom)  are 
more  vital  to  human  well-being  than  any 
maxims,  however  important,  which  only 
point  out  the  best  mode  of  managing  some 
department  of  human  afiairs.  They  have 
also  the  peculiarity,  that  they  are  the  main 
element  in  determining  the  whole  of  the 
social  feelings  of  mankind.  It  is  their  ob- 
servance which  alone  preserves  peace 
among  human  beings ;  if  obedience  to 
them  were  not  the  rule,  and  disobedience 
the  exception,  every  one  would  see  in 
every  one  else  a  probable  enemy,  against 


138  UTILITARIANISM. 

whom  he  must  be  perpetually  guardiug 
himself.  What  is  hardly  less  important, 
these  are  the  precepts  which  mankind  have 
the  strons^est  and  most  direct  inducements 
for  impressing  upon  one  another.  By 
merely  giving  to  each  other  prudential  in- 
struction or  exhortation,  they  may  gain, 
or  think  they  gain,  nothing ;  in  inculcat- 
ing on  each  other  the  duty  of  positive 
beneficence  they  have  an  unmistakable 
interest,  but  far  less  in  degree ;  a  person 
may  possibly  not  need  the  benefits  of 
others ;  but  he  always  needs  that  they 
should  not  do  him  hurt.\  Thus  the  moral- 
ities which  protect  every  individual  from 
being  harmed  by  others,  either  directly  or 
by  being  hindered  in  his  freedom  of  pur- 
suing his  own  good,  are  at  once  those 
which  he  himself  has  most  at  heart,  and 
those  which  he  has  the  strongest  interest 
in  publishing  and  enforcing  by  word  and 
deed/  It  is  by  a  person's  observance  of 
these,  that  his  fitness  to  exist  as  one  of  the 
fellowship  of  human  beings  is  tested  and 
decided ;  for  on  that  depends  his  being  a 
nuisance  or  not  to  those  with  whom  he  is 
in  contact.      Now   it   is  these  moralities, 


BOW  CONNECTED   WITB  JUSTICE.    139 

primarily,  which  compose  the  obligations 
of  justice.  The  most  Qiarked  cases  of  io- 
justice,  and  those  which  give  the  tone  to 
the  feeling  of  repugnance  which  character- 
izes the  sentiment,  are  acts  of  wrongful 
aggression,  or  wrongful  exercise  of  power 
over  some  one  ;  the  next  are  those  which 
consist  m  wrongfully  withholding  from 
him  something  which  is  his  due ;  in  both 
cases  inflicting  on  him  a  positive  hurt, 
either  in  the  form  of  direct  suffering,  or  of 
the  privation  of  some  good  which  he  had 
reasonable  ground,  either  of  a  physical  or 
of  a  social  kind,  for  counting  upon. 

The  same  powerful  motives  which  com- 
mand the  observance  of  these  primary 
moralities,  enjoin  the  punishment  of  those 
who  violate  them ;  and  as  the  impulses  of 
self-defence,  of  defence  of  others,  and  of 
vengeance,  are  all  called  forth  against  such 
persons,  retribution,  or  evil  for  evil,  be- 
comes closely  connected  with  the  sentiment 
of  justice,  and  is  universally  included  in 
the  idea.  Good  for  good  is  also  one  of 
the  dictates  of  justice ;  and  this,  though 
its  social  utility  is  evident,  and  though  it 
carries  with  it  a  natural  human  feeling,  has 


140  UTILITABIANISM. 

not  at  first  sight  that  obvious  connection 
with  hurt  or  injury,  which,  existing  in  the 
most  elementary  cases  of  just  and  unjust, 
is  the  source  of  the  characteristic  intensity 
of  the  sentiment.  But  the  connection, 
though  less  obvious,  is  not  less  real.  He 
who  accepts  benefits,  and  denies  a  return 
of  them  when  needed,  inflicts  a  real  hurt, 
by  disappointing  one  of  the  most  natural 
and  reasonable  of  expectations,  and  one 
which  he  must  at  least  tacitly  have  encour- 
aged, otherwise  the  benefits  would  seldom 
have  been  conferred.  The  important  rank, 
among  human  evils  and  wrongs,  of  the 
disappointment  of  expectation,  is  shown  in 
the  fact  that  it  constitutes  the  principal 
criminality  of  two  such  highly  immoral 
acts  as  a  breach  of  friendship  and  a  breach 
of  promise.  Few  hurts  which  human  be- 
ings can  sustain  are  greater,  and  none 
wound  more,  than  when  that  on  which 
they  habitually  and  with  full  assurance  re- 
lied, fails  them  in  the  hour  of  need ;  and 
few  wrongs  are  greater  than  this  mere 
withholding  of  good :  none  excite  more 
resentment,  either  in  the  person  sufiering, 
or    in   a    sympathizing   spectator.      The 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    141 

principle,  therefore,  of  giving  to  each 
what  they  deserve,  that  is,  good  for  good, 
as  well  as  evil  for  evil,  is  not  only  included 
within  the  idea  of  Justice  as  we  have 
defined  it,  but  is  a  proper  object  of  that 
intensity  of  sentiment,  which  places  the 
Just,  in  human  estimation,  above  the  sim- 
ply Expedient.  ^ 

Most  of  the  maxims  of  justice  current 
in  the  world,  and  commonly  appealed  to 
in  its  transactions,  are  simply  instrumental 
to  carrying  into  effect  the  principles  of 
justice  which  we  have  now  spoken  of. 
That  a  person  is  only  responsible  for  what 
he  has  done  voluntarily,  or  could  volun- 
tarily have  avoided ;  that  it  is  unjust  to 
condemn  any  person  unheard ;  that  the 
punishment  ought  to  be  proportioned  to 
the  offence,  and  the  like,  are  maxims  in- 
tended to  prevent  the  just  principle  of 
evil  for  evil  from  being  perverted  to  the 
infliction  of  evil  without  that  justification. 
The  greater  part  of  these  common  maxims 
have  come  into  use  from  the  practice  of 
courts  of  justice,  which  have  been  natu- 
rally led  to  a  more  complete  recognition 
and  elaboration  than  was  likely  to  suggest 


142  UTILITABIANISM. 

itself  to  others,  of  the  rules  necessary  to 
enable  them  to  fulfil  their  double  function, 
of  inflicting  punishment  when  due,  and  of 
awarding  to  each  person  his  right. 

That  first  of  judicial  virtues,  impartial- 
ity, is  an  obligation  of  justice,  partly  for 
the  reason  last  mentioned ;  as  being  a 
necessary  condition  of  the  fulfilment  of 
the  other  obligations  of  justice.  But  this 
is  not  the  only  source  of  the  exalted  rank, 
among  human  obligations,  of  those  maxims 
of  equality  and  impartiality,  which,  both 
in  popular  estimation  and  in  that  of  the 
most  enlightened,  are  included  among  the 
precepts  of  justice.  In  one  point  of  view, 
they  may  be  considered  as  corollaries  from 
the  principles  already  laid  down.  V  If  it  is 
a  duty  to  do  to  each  according  to  its  de- 
serts, returning  good  for  good  as  well  as 
repressing  evil  by  evil,  it  necessarily  fol- 
lows that  we  should  treat  all  equally  well 
(when  no  higher  duty  forbids)  who  have 
deserved  equally  well  of  us,  and  that  so- 
ciety should  treat  all  equally  well  who 
have  deserved  equally  well  of  it,  that  is, 
who  have  deserved  equally  well  absolutely. 
This  is  the  highest  abstract  standard  of 


HOW  CONNECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    143 

social  and  distributive  justice ;  towards 
which  all  institutions,  and  the  efforts  of 
all  virtuous  citizens,  should  be  made  in 
the  utmost  possible  degree  to  converge. 
But  this  great  moral  duty  rests  upon  a 
still  deeper  foundation,  being  a  direct 
emanation  from  the  first  principles  of 
morals,  and  not  a  mere  logical  corollary 
from  secondary  or  derivative  doctrines. 
It  is  involved  in  the  very  meaning  of 
Utility,  or  the  Greatest-Happiness  Princi- 
ple. '^  That  principle  is  a  mere  form  of 
words  without  rational  signification,  unless  / 
one  person's  happiness,  supposed  equal  in 
degree  (with  the  proper  allowance  made 
for  kind) ,  is  counted  for  exactly  as  much 
as  another's  ;  those  conditions  being  sup-' 
plied,  Bentham's  dictum,  "everybody  to 
count  for  one,  nobody  for  more  than  one," 
might  be  written  under  the  principle  of 
utility,  as  an  explanatory  commentary.* 

*This  implication,  in  tlie  first  principle  of  the 
utilitarian  scheme,  of  perfect  impartiality  between 
persons,  is  regarded  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  (in 
his  Social  Statics)  as  a  disproof  of  the  pretensions 
of  utility  to  be  a  sufficient  guide  to  right;  since 
(he  says)  the  principle  of  utility  presupposes  the 
anterior  principle,    that  everybody  has  an    equal 


144  UTILITABIANISM. 

The  equal  claim  of  everybody  to  happi- 
ness in  the  estimation  of  the  moralist  and 
the  legislator,  involves  an  equal  claim  to 
all  the  means  of  happiness,  except  in  so 
far  as  the  inevitable  conditions  of  human 
life,  and  the  general  interest,  in  which 
that  of  every  individual  is  included,  set 
limits  to  the  maxim;  and  those  limits 
ought  to  be  strictly  construed.     As  every 

rigM  to  happiness.  It  may  be  more  correctly 
described  as  supposing  that  equal  amounts  of  hap- 
piness are  equally  desirable,  whether  felt  by  the 
same  or  by  different  persons,  This,  however,  is 
not  a  presupposition ;  not  a  premise  needful  to  sup- 
port the  principle  of  utility,  but  the  very  principle 
itself ;  for  what  is  the  principle  of  utility,  if  it  be 
not  that ' '  happiness  "  and  ' '  desirable  "  are  synony- 
mous terms?  If  there  is  any  anterior  principle  im- 
plied, it  can  be  no  other  than  this,  that  the  truths 
of  arithmetic  are  applicable  to  the  valuation  of 
happiness,  as  of  all  other  measurable  quantities. 

[Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  a  private  communica- 
tion on  the  subject  of  the  preceding  note,  objects 
to  being  considered  an  opponent  of  Utilitarianism, 
and  states  that  he  regards  happiness  as  the  ulti- 
mate end  of  morality;  but  deems  that  end  only 
partially  attainable  by  empirical  generalizations 
from  the  observed  results  of  conduct,  and  com- 
pletely attainable  only  by  deducing,  from  the  laws 
of  life  and  the  conditions  of  existence,  what  kinds 
of  action  necessarily  tend  to  produce  happiness, 


HOW  CONNECTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    145 

other  maxim  of  justice,  so  this  is  by  no 
means  applied  or  held  applicable  univer- 
sally ;  on  the  contrary,  as  I  have  already 
remarked,  it  bends  to  every  person's  ideas 
of  social  expediency.  But  in  whatever 
case  it  is  deemed  applicable  at  all,  it  is 
held  to  be  the  dictate  of  justice.  'All 
persons  are  deemed  to  have  a  right  to 
equality  of  treatment,  except  when  some 

and  what  kinds  to  produce  nnhappiness.  With  the 
exception  of  the  word  "necessarily,"  I  have  no 
dissent  to  express  from  this  doctrine ;  and  (omit- 
ting that  word)  I  am  not  aware  that  any  modern 
advocate  of  utilitarianism  is  of  a  different  opinion. 
Bentham,  certainly,  to  whom  in  the  Social  Statics 
Mr.  Spencer  particularly  referred,  is,  least  of  all 
writers,  chargeable  with  unwillingness  to  deduce 
the  effect  of  actions  on  happiness  from  the  laws 
of  human  nature  and  the  imiversal  conditions 
of  human  life.  The  common  charge  against  him 
is  of  relying  too  exclusively  upon  such  deductions, 
and  declining  altogether  to  be  bound  by  the  gener- 
alization from  specific  experience  which  Mr.  Spen- 
cer thinks  that  utilitarians  generally  confine  them- 
selves to.  My  own  opinion  (and  as  I  collect,  Mr. 
Spencer's)  is,  that  in  ethics,  as  in  all  other  branches 
of  scientific  study,  the  consilience  of  the  results 
of  both  these  processes,  each  corroborating  and 
verifying  the  other,  is  requisite  to  give  to  any  gen- 
eral proposition  the  kind  and  degree  of  evidence 
which  constitutes  scientific  proof.] 

10' 


146  UTILITARIANISM. 

recognized  social  expediency  requires  the 
reverse.  And  hence  all  social  inequalities 
which  have  ceased  to  be  considered  expe- 
dient, assume  the  character  not  of  simple 
inexpediency,  but  of  injustice,  and  appear 
so  tyrannical,  that  people  are  apt  to  won- 
der how  they  ever  could  have  been  tol- 
erated ;  forgetful  that  they  themsefc^es 
perhaps  tolerate  other  inequalities  under 
an  equally  mistaken  notion  of  expediency, 
the  correction  of  which  would  make  that 
which  they  approve  seem  quite  as  mon- 
strous as  what  they  have  at  last  learnt  to 
condemn.  The  entire  history  of  social 
improvement  has  been  a  series  of  transi- 
tions, by  which  one  custom  or  institution 
after  another,  from  being  a  supposed  pri- 
mary necessity  of  social  existence,  has 
passed  into  the  rank  of  an  universally 
stigmatized  injustice  and  tyranny.  So  it 
has  been  with  the  distinctions  of  slaves 
and  freemen,  nobles  and  serfs,  patricians 
and  plebeians ;  and  so  it  will  be,  and  in 
part  already  is,  with  the  aristocracies  of 
color,  race,  and  sex. 

It  appears   from   what   has    been    said, 
that  justice   is  a  name  for  certain   moral 


HOW  CONNEGTED   WITH  JUSTICE.    147 

requirements,  which,  regarded  collec- 
tively, stand  higher  in  the  scale  of  social 
utility,  and  are  therefore  of  more  para- 
mount obligation,  than  any  others  ;  though 
particular  cases  may  occur  in  which  some 
other  social  duty  is  so  important  as  to 
overrule  any  one  of  the  general  maxims  of 
justice.  Thus,  to  save  a  life,  it  may  not 
only  be  allowable,  but  a  duty,  to  steal,  or 
take  by  force,  the  necessary  food  or  medi- 
cine, or  to  kidnap,  and  compel  to  officiate, 
the  only  qualified  medical  practitioner. 
In  such  cases,  as  we  do  not  call  anything 
justice  which  is  not  a  virtue,  we  usually 
say,  not  that  justice  must  give  way  to 
some  other  moral  principle,  but  that  what 
is  just  in  ordinary  cases  is,  by  reason  of 
that  other  principle,  not  just  in  the 
particular  case.  By  this  useful  accom- 
modation of  language,  the  character  of 
indefeasibility  attributed  to  justice  is  kept 
up,  and  we  are  saved  from  the  necessity 
of  maintaining  that  there  can  be  laudable 
injustice. 

The  considerations  which  have  now 
been  adduced  resolve,  I  conceive,  the  only 
real  difficulty  in  the  utilitarian  theory  of 


148  UTILITABIANISM. 

morals.  It  has  always  been  evident  that 
all  cases  of  justice  are  also  cases  of  expe- 
diency; the  difference  is  in  the  peculiar 
sentiment  which  attaches  to  the  former, 
as  condradistinguished  from  the  latter. 
If  this  characteristic  sentiment  has  been 
sufficiently  accounted  for ;  if  there  is  no 
necessity  to  assume  for  it  any  peculiarity 
of  origin  ;  if  it  is  simply  the  natural  feel- 
ing of  resentment,  moralized-  by  being 
made  coextensive  with  the  demands  of 
social  good ;  and  if  this  feeling  not  only 
does  but  ought  to  exist  in  all  the  classes, 
of  cases  to  which  the  idea  of  justice  corre- 
sponds, that  idea  no  longer  presents  it- 
self as  a  stumbling-block  to  the  utilitarian 
ethics.  I  Justice  remains  the  appropriate 
name  for  certain  social  utilities  which  are 
vastly  more  important,  and  therefore  more 
absolute  and  imperative,  than  any  others 
are  as  a  class^  (though  not  more  so  than 
others  may  be  in  particular  cases)  ;  and 
which,  therefore,  ought  to  be,  as  well  as 
naturally  are,  guarded  by  a  sentiment  not 
only  different  in  degree,  but  also  in  kind  ; 
distinguished  from  the  milder  feeling 
which  attaches  to  the  mere  idea  of  pro- 


HOW  CONNECTED    WITH  JUSTICE.    149 

moting  human  pleasure  or  convenience,  at 
once  by  the  more  definite  nature  of  its 
commands,  and  by  the  sterner  character 
of  its  sanctions. 


THE    END. 


\x^s^f^m 


